Packing the centreboard case

At the nationals it was interesting to see how people are packing the case to fit the daggerboard.

The class rules were updated following a change to the specification of the hull by the builder.

See https://www.tasar.org/news/2019/01/proposed-rule-changes-january-2019.aspx

This means that you can now fill the case to fill the profile of the daggerboard.

Here is how it looks on a new boat.

Some people have taken their boats to boat builders to have this copied and the results look pretty good.

Here is an example.

We didn’t have that option locally so I thought I’d have a go myself.

Shock Sailing sell a foil sealing kit / product (no affiliation) and so I thought I’d give it a go.

I used this product: http://www.shocksailing.com/category-foil-sealer.html

and I followed (sort of) this guide: http://www.shocksailing.com/uploads/cms/files/how%20to%20use%20orange%20gasket%20material(1).pdf

I had already previously attempted to profile my case a bit with the self adhesive packing kit and I left all of that in place and just pushed the foil sealer in on top of that.

Note, what I am doing here is adding the foil sealer on top of the existing packing. I used a Stanley to cut the existing packing back a bit the added the foil sealer on top to get a tight fit.

First step was to tape the board up and apply the release agent

Then turn the boat over, mask off the area, and put the board in.

Then I mixed up the sealer and pushed it around the board with a credit card and smoothed it out.

The pink sealer is quite firm so it is easy to work down the gaps and is stiff enough that it doesn’t run down the case void.

Looked like this…

 

Then you leave it for 12 hours (overnight) and come back to the job.

At this stage I was a bit worried I had just bonded the board into the boat and I would never get it out.

Next morning I removed the tape (from the hull) and wriggled the board which instantly released and I pushed it out.

I trimmed the pink stuff with a knife and I was left with the below.

 

I have not sanded it as it is a reasonable finish so that is it.

We sailed with this at the nationals and the board went up & down fine and the amount of water that comes up the case was much reduced.

Since we got back I have also sealed the top … see below. This is more difficult to do as you need to find a way to position the boat with the board down for 12 hours.

All in all a pretty easy job to do and not too expensive.