Skeg not staying in slot

I have a Chesapeake 16 and 17 in which I have installed skegs from CLC plans.  I fabricated the skegs from 4mm plywood glassed on both sides.  The skeg will not consistently stay locked in place on the dowell once I attach the bungee and pull cord.  I have reexamined the slot and skeg and everything is the correct dimensionally.  Any ideas?

4 replies:

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RE: Skeg not staying in slot

I am not sure how CLC's skeg works, but on a standard skeg, the bungee deploys the skeg, and the rope returns it.  If that is the case, then I would check to see if the bungee is wrapped the correct direction or tight enough.

Kev

RE: Skeg not staying in slot

Thanks for the deply.  I have the skeg tensioned to the stern (deployed position) and the pull cord toward the cockpit to retract, as the plans show.

    The CLC skeg has an inverted L shaped slot at the bottom and a dowell in the box to serve as a hinge.  Supposedly the tension on the bungee maintains the skeg locked in the top part of the L.  If I operated the skeg ten times at least once the skeg becomes unlocked.  I'm thinking I'll glue a clip over the slot to secure it.  I'm also thinking it's a poor design on CLC's part but was hoping there was something I had missed.  Anyone else with CLC skegs?

RE: Skeg not staying in slot

I installed the CLC skeg kit in my Wood Duck 12. I haven't had a single problem with it. It seems to me that the tension from the bungie pretty much locks the thing in place on the dowel.

RE: Skeg not staying in slot

bertram, perhaps just tightening the bungie a bit more will fix your problem?  I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "locked" in position.  The CLC skeg doesn't lock in any position, without some sort of external (like the chord lock to keep it up) force applied to it.  As far as I'm aware, the skeg is intentionally designed to "bounce" upward if it hits rocks and the like, so as not to damage the skeg or your boat. 

FrankP

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