Aint going nowhere !

Did not quite finished my keel box but I sure as hell made sure the keel sleeve was as solid as possible. As a matter of fact, I even believe that the way the sleeve is overbuild and over glued to the hull, the box itself is almost unecessary.

What I did first was lay a nice filet of thick epox/ /microfiber in order to glue the sleeve as well as possible to the aft and fwd frames as well as to the hull floor. All gaps were closed.

I let it cured than applied a thick layer of epoxi /coloidal silica to make nice round edges, applied my usual strips of kevlar (cut out with metal cissors) and covered everything up with pretty large bands (50 cm wide +- 20 ") of fiberglass.

Overlapping all this fiber and using very large strips allowed me to make sure that all forces exerced on the keel sleeve will be properly distributed to the surrounding wooden panels.

The box itself will add even more rigidity and assure everything is watertight.

If I did not mess up with the keel alignment when epoxing the sleeve, I should be allright.

I also took my time and had great pleasure in shaping the 2 inches thick wooden blocks that will be placed at the bottom of the keel box. Whenever necessary, angles were rounded off to allow for the space taken by fillet I had laid to secure the sleeve. I also routed a channel at the bottom of those blocks to fit on top of the extra ply strip I used at the beginning of construction to butt my panels.

I went from this

to two of these

Wood sculpting rules ! I might really give it a try after my boat is finished....