Pulling a Cal20 our via keel bolt hoist

[Sailor Tom]

Hello all,

I'm in a bit of a tight spot and need some advice.
I've arranged to keep my boat (Cal20) on land at a local marina where they have a fleet of Cal20's that they launch via a small crane hoist. The hoist attaches to a ring bracket that attaches to two keel bolts in the cabin. My problem is that my boat does not have this bracket and they didn't tell me that I needed that bracket until after I had the boat there and ready to hoist. It was only when I asked where the straps were that they informed me of their method. I asked several times before arriving about using their lift and they kept saying that "It's really easy don't worry about it". I even asked where the sling was and they never mentioned the need for the bracket.

So now I have my boat there in a spot where it can only stay for a couple days and I basically need to do something over the weekend to either get my boat on land via their hoist or sail it somewhere else and use a sling. But sailing somewhere else this weekend is definitely not ideal.

My question (and it might be a newbie dumb one but here goes)
Is it safe to loosen two keel bolts and attach the required bracket while the boat is still in the water? This doesn't seem like a good idea to me but I figured I'd ask anyway... maybe it's doable. I could probably do 1 bolt at a time.

I've attached two pictures, 1 with the bracket I'm referencing and the other is a still of my boat without the bracket.

Thoughts?

Tom.

[Sailmonkey]

If you're worried about the keel falling off........ It's not going to happen. Take both nuts off, goop up the back of the bracket if you feel like it, then tighten the nuts back up.

[Sailor Tom]

Hi Sailmonkey,

Thanks for the quick reply. I wasn't worried about the keel falling off. More concerned about water leaking in through those bolts if they were loosened and potentially causing damage/rot after I re-tighten. But if they were sealed properly to being with it may not be a problem?

tom.

[Sailmonkey]

If everything is sealed properly you'll not see a drop of water. If you do, you'll need to drop the keel and reseal it anyway......but loosing two nuts won't cause it to start leaking if it's not already leaking.

[Sailor Tom]

Thanks for your recommendation Sailmonkey. Much appreciated.
Now I just have to find the bracket over the weekend!

[cal40john]

Isn't this a flange style keel with the heads of the bolts on the outside of the boat? My guess is there's enough goo they're not going anywhere, but I've never seen one with the nut off so I don't know.

John

[Pato]

At least your on your way out of the water if you do develop a leak and can effect a repair on the hard. I believe they are carriage head bolts so should not spin while trying to undo the nuts

[cal40john]

Test fitting the brand new keel bolts.

Could call these guys and ask what kind of bolts are in their set of keelbolts:
Seals Spars and Rigging: Cal 20 Catalog

[Sailor Tom]

Thanks John,
I've been hanging on to that Seals and Spars link for a while for exactly these situations. Luckily I've been able to contact some folks in the Cal20 fleet at the marina and they have a sling that can be used to take the boat out. Got the email late last night and was super excited. Really helped me sleep. Not sure why the gentleman at the marina that I was dealing with didn't recommend the sling to begin with. Maybe he didn't know about it.

Either way it looks like I'll be able to make it happen. Once on the hard I can add those brackets to lift the boat out without using the sling.

Thanks for all your help and recommendations. Much appreciated.

Tom.

[Sailor Tom]

Just following up on this thread in case anyone is interested.

I ordered the lifting eyes and sling from Seals Spars however I haven't used them yet.
I'm still dealing with the keel bolts. I've read in several places that the keel bolts on a Cal20 have a square flange or something similar so you can tighten and loosen the bolts from the interior of the boat without needing someone under to hold the bolt. The square flange holds the bolt in place and keeps it from spinning. This is not the case with my boat unfortunately. On my boat the bolts have smooth round flanges so when I went to remove the nuts on the end the bolts just spun in place. Luckily the boat's on the hard on a trailer so it's not a huge deal but it could have been if I had tried to install the lifting eyes while the boat was in the water. Could've been a bad scene.

When I pulled the bolts out and inspected the hole it's obvious that there is no square insert for a square flanged keel bolt to sit.

I'm thinking that it might be because my boat was built in North Vancouver, Canada and not in California. Maybe the Canadian boats don't have the same keel bolt inserts?

Just an FYI for the Cal20 owners out there.