bilge bolts

[robw]

hi might be a dumb question but do the 563s have keel bolts i have been cleaning out the bilge and noticed 4 rusted prob 12mm bolts coming up from the keel. can some one answer this riddle . cheers rob.

[Greg]

They were used to lower the lead ingots down into position during manufacture. Its all good if they have rusted away, if you need to remove the ingots for maintenance you can drill and tap new bolts into the ingots to lift them out.

[robw]

Thanks greg that will ease my minds cheers rob.

[Ozzie]

If you have a stub of metal still sticking up you can make use of it. I cleaned it off and placed an old seat belt buckle over it and then welded a nut over that to retain it . This gives you a hard point to chain anything you want down to for security. Tool box , outboard , martian invaders etc. Unlike a pulpit or taffrail, it is in a fairly inaccessible spot so if you use a good quality chain the padlock (which is often the weak link) is hard to attack with bolt cutters.

Give it two good coats of metal epoxy . I did this years ago and its still fine and I use it occasionally if I'm leaving the boat unattended in odd places. Don't lose your key.

I do have a photo somewhere if I find it I will post it.

EDIT..sorry no photo but here is one I prepared earlier

drill out red area to fit bolt

China_Ariline_Seat_Belt_Buckle20126251629384.jpg (12.3 KiB) Viewed 3641 times