Updating your OK Dinghy.
The following notes were made in an interview with Ken Carroll while we were waiting for the wind to fill in at a recent open meeting. Ken has recently acquired GBR 2001, an O'Donnell hull probably 15 years old, possibly more. It may well be of interest to anyone who has bought a second hand OK dinghy.
- Move the traveller forward to 5cm from the bulkhead at the front of the cockpit (so that you can sit out at the widest part of the hull).
- Move the traveller cleats forward on to the bulkhead.
- Move the mainsheet cleat. Ken changed his to a centre jammer.
- Strip out the mast foot bearing (this was ply wood). Replace with new strong plastic mast bearing (this MUST NOT give way and is subject to forces of several tonnes)
- Remove tubes and fittings from when the control lines were under the deck (under deck control lines are seriously slow).
- Take out blocks of wood supporting various fittings eg deck cleats and replace with pieces of sail batten. Ken managed to lose 3Kg from his boat. Remove corrector weights and get a measurer to re-weigh the hull which should be 72Kg including cleats, hatch covers, compass and control lines but excluding the centreboard.
- Re-paint the cockpit floor with non slip paint.
- Take out the self bailers. Re-seal and fare into the hull to give a smooth surface with no turbulence.
- Reseal the hatch covers with a little mastic.
- Throw away the deck compass and fill the hole in with an additional hatch cover (remember you are allowed no more than 3 hatches in any one buoyancy compartment).
- Put in proper supports behind the toe strap bolts. Ken's were pulling the nuts through the bulkhead.
- Add packing pieces to the transom (max 1cm) and then attach new rudder pintle and gudgeon. Renew the plastic rudder clip with a stainless one.
- Hold the spacers either side of the deck mast bearing with two pieces of thin shockcord (or screw two pieces of sail batten over them - they can fall out is a capsize).
- Fit side deck pads - they make sitting out an OK in a force 5 like sitting on your sofa.
- Re fit the boom to take out the slack/wear in the boom pin and pin securing the kicker lever. Move boom strops so that the forward one is above the traveller and the aft one is 10cm further back.
- Fill all holes left by moving things around with epoxy resin.
- Turn the hull upside down and fill all scratches and dents with marine filler. Sand off smoothly and paint.
- Renew or better still fare into the hull the keelband.
- Make sure the centreboard fits the box properly and that it sticks down to the maximum depth allowed. Do this by sticking parcel tape on either side of the thickest part of the board until it is right. Measure the thickness then remove the parcel tape and add marine filler to that thickness. Put the boat on its side and lower the centreboard. Taking a line at right angles to the hull the board should stick down 800mm below the boat. The handle on Ken's boat was not allowing the board to go down far enough so he planed off a bit of the handle.
- Attach some thin rope to the top of the board so it can be pulled up and down easily. Most people these days go for the continuous rope system so in the even of a capsize the board can be pulled out of the box while the boat is upside down (you'll see what I mean soon enough!)
- Replace all control lines with Kevlar.
- Put on righting lines - great if you don't have to use them but......
- Measure the existing mast position. The distance from the front of the mast to the bow of the boat should be 700 to 710mm. Having got this right move the position of the bottom step so that the distance from the top of the mast to the middle of the stern deck at the transom is between 6m 10cm and 6m 20cm (for Aluminium masts).
If you've still got some money over buy a second hand centreboard and 150 rudder from the used boat list.