MacGregorSailors.com

Hello
My friends daggerboard won't go down.

He had some contact down with the daggerboard, but there was no major damage.

So they made the daggerboard at the deep end down with new resin and gelcoat.

BIG PROBLEM now: The daggerboard does not go down in the water. It swimms up.

Could it be that they closed some holes where that water has to go in? Is this tricky?

One other theory was, that the centerboard now is TOO HEAWY (which makes no sense for me). Does somebody know the weight of it?

Thanks for every idea...

kurz

The centerboard on the X (M's have daggerboards) is designed to be hollow on the inside so that it fills with water when lowered and "sinks". There is a hole in the lower bottom corner - the first part of the board to make contact with the water when lowered - to allow the water to enter the board when the centerboard line is released. If the holes were plugged, I would imagine this would cause the board to be less dense than water, causing it to float. On another note, I had to re-inforce my pivot point on the board as the radius of the hole in the thin fibreglass was getting larger due to wear. I filled that small part with solid fibreglass and then re-drilled a pivot hole. No problems since. The rest of the board remains hollow to allow it to fill with water.

Hi Kurt

Hmmm ….. interesting….

At the moment I’d have to agree with RADON that there is a good possibility that the fill/vent/drain holes are probably clogged/obstructed/damaged when it was impacted/repaired.

I don’t have access to the swing keel at the moment but maybe someone on the forum can mark up the sketch below with where their Mac26X keel has these holes located. Then your frien can inspect his and possibly rectify the situation….




Best Regards
Over Easy

The hole is approximately here.

Their has to b a vent hole also to allow it to fill with water & also drain , I think the D/B has 4 holes in the bottom & top for this purpose

J