Hi Tom, I know of the photo you are referring to. The two of us in our 15's were sailing in company with Larry Yake on Lower Priest Lake. We did nose both boats onto the sandy beach but my intention was to keep the keel and centerboards above the bottom. You can't tell this from the picture but at the stern of the 15's the water is probably 3 ft deep. There is not a lot of clearance between the centerboard and its cavity inside the keel. In my opinion it would not take much grit at all to jam the center board inside the cavity. The other problem we noticed when nosing in the 15's like this is because they were not hard aground any wave action caused quite a bit of abrasion to the bow area in contact with the sand. You don't see Larry in his 17 in that picture, but he is anchored a few yards away in deeper water. The keel/centerboard arrangement on the 15 is the same as the late-1988 and newer 17's. In my opinion it is too much of a risk to the keel/centerboard to beach either boat. Randy M17 #410 Formerly, M15 #407 On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 12:19 PM, Tom Jenkins <tjenk@gte.net> wrote:
Folks, As an ex-Potter sailor with a 17, I just can't seem to give up the desire to pull into a sandy or muddy beach and jump off for a stroll. I hate to bring this up again, but I am wondering if sand or mud will inevitably jam the centerboard if I come in until the keel touches. Anybody actually tried this, and what happened? Bob has a picture of two 15s on his Montgomery website doing just this, but I don't know how different the keel and centerboard arrangements are. Finally, if the centerboard should jam with some debris, is there any way to pull or push it down without swimming upside down with a pry bar? Thanks, Tom Jenkins M17 #626 Scintilla
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