TEST (daysailer-test.org) Day Sailer Forum

With the centerboard in the up position does it sit fully in the trunk?

I was looking under the boat last night as I pull out of the ramp and noticed I was a little off center on the trailer and the center board was hanging out about 3 inches. The handle was all the way and latched.

Any ideas? I feel like it should be fully seated in the trunk in the up position.

I assume you have a CB with a handle? In that case, a sagging board means the square hole for your CB pivot is worn, allowing some play. The fix isn't complicated, but involves dropping the CB. Once you have access to the hole, file it to a new, larger square size and sleeve it with a suitable non-corrosive metal, preferably the same as the CB handle, but stainless steel should work as well. If you are worried about galvanic corrosion you can use TefGel to isolate.

As long as the CB is held close enough to the hull that it doesn't get caught when launching, you can continue to use your boat until you can access the CB. You may want to keep a sturdy paddle handy. For my boat, when it doesn't load totally square the CB sometimes dropped just low enough to prevent shifting the boat back over the keel rollers. Inserting a paddle provided temporary support for the CB until we repositioned the boat.

I have my cb out right now pending the hole rebuild. When finished, how should the sides of the square compare to the long sides of the centerboard? My hole is so chewed up I can't tell. Guessing parallel/perpendicular? Cheat it an extra 5-10 degrees to get good retraction? Cheat it too much though and the handle won't reach the locking pawl.

You may have to eyeball it. With the handle straight up, the board should by horizontal in the cb locker. With the handle pulled all the way back the cb should be straight down. SO there is 90 degrees between the handle and cb