Ian Oughted Wee Rob outer keel attachment

[Joe McElroy]

My drawings don't show a keel detail. It appears that the garboard is attached to the inner keel (or hog) 1/4" from the centerline. The outer keel is then attached to the inner keel between the garboards? The hog is shown as 5/8" thick, which only allows beveling to the 1/4" off-center mark. Wouldn't it be more normal to run the planks to the centerline and then plane them flat to accept the keel? I don't want to plane extra material off, thereby changing the lines of the boat. I guess epoxy goop does the keel/garboard "fitting". Thanks for your comments.

[Jim M]

When I built the MacGregor I put a layer of fiberglass spanning the garboards (and thus the inner keel). Then screwed the outer to the inner thru the glass. Heavy but strong. I suppose you could attach the outer with 5200 instead of epoxy so you can replace the outer, but I haven't worn that much off mine in 6 years; and if I wore off a half-inch in a lifetime, I could just plane it flat and glue on a replacement piece.

The glass might have added 1/8" to the depth of the boat; I doubt if it's a "material breach."