Mike- on the CB, let me tell you about the history of the two different CBs in the 17. The original design was for an iron crank up/down keel that didn't work out well; hard to build and not very effective because of the wide, open trunk when the keel was down. Lyle Hess, the designer of the 17, at my request, re-drew it to the current keel/CB design and I did some re-tooling. This worked out very well and is a major part of the success of the 17. When I moved to Sacramento in '87, I had some extra money because of selling real estate and bought a bunch of 17 centerboards. When I ran out of them I called the iron foundry to find that they were out of business, and the location of the pattern was unknown. Knowing that the 17 was nearing the end of it's production life, I put together a 17 using the M-15 board, which was made of glass, and much smaller in area but quite a bit thicker. I sailed the boat and it sailed fine altho it was a bit slower than the old cb, but nobody that I knew about was racing the 17. To compensate for less weight, I made up the difference by adding enough more ballast to make up the difference plus a bit more because the vertical cb obviously went up. I had already switched to lead, mostly because I couldn't find a good source of clean steel punchings in the Sac area, but there was a trap range that used a clever little placer mining setup to mine and clean the used shot. I don't see a practical way to pt a 15 board in a 17; smaller but thicker. I'd fix the problem by making a finding some 1/2" lead plate, cut it out a bit undersized, grind the edges down to feather them, mostly the trailing edge, then cover it with glass to stiffen it and bring it up to thickness, which probably would be about 7/8", but obviously you should measure it carefully first. maybe make a plywood pattern of 3/4" material, install it, and stick some spacers up beside the ply. I suspect that this board would be as heavy as the cast iron boards, but if its 20 or 30 pounds heavier or lighter, you'd never tell it. Hope this helps. -----Original Message----- From: John Schinnerer Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2016 6:03 PM To: For and about Montgomery Sailboats Subject: Re: M_Boats: Hello - CB and rudder I have a 1974 M17. AFAKIK the total ballast was about the same before and after the switch from heavy CB to light CB - the difference was made up in the fixed keel ballast. If you put a light CB in a pre-light-CB Monty, at the least you'll have a much more tender (probably less safe and seaworthy) boat. I'd assume you need to fabricate or find a CB of matching weight to the original. Or maybe you could add fixed ballast - beyond my knowledge if that would be reasonable, or where/how. I have my boat's original one piece slightly counterbalanced rudder, and also one of the slide-up types that I bought from another list member. I could provide pix and dimensions if you need (but not until late next week at the soonest). cheers, John S. On 05/17/2016 12:54 PM, michael beebe via montgomery_boats wrote:
Hello all. I'm a owner of a 1984 M17, recent purchase. It's missing a few things, standing n running rigging. No spreaders, centerboard gone, rudder cut off short. Are any measures available for these items? Thanks. Also I noticed the cast iron centerboard was done away with in 87' I think. Can I make myself one of ply n epoxy glass, my question, the weight factor, metal #165 +/- , is that weight needed ? Ballast? Added inside? I'm stuck, any thoughts, thanks ever so much, Mike
-- John Schinnerer - M.A., Whole Systems Design -------------------------------------------- - Eco-Living - Whole Systems Design Services People - Place - Learning - Integration john@eco-living.net - 510.982.1334 http://eco-living.net http://sociocracyconsulting.com