Keel locking pin Issue

[JHubb]

I finely got her on the water! Sailing on the Chesapeake in September is everything we were told.
Everything went pretty much as expected ( a few problems, but we got all but 1 worked out).
The only issue I couldn't work out is, when I lowered the keel, the holes didn't line up.
I could see the top of the hole in the keel, but couldn't come close to getting the pin in.
I eventual put 2 screwdrivers in and bungied them in place.
Anybody have a fix?
Thanks,
Jeff

[BadgerJuan]

For what it’s worth, when I lower the keel all the way, the bolt will not go through the keel. I need to wind it up just slightly to find a sweet spot so that the keel bolt will easily pass through all of the holes.

[kuriti]

Same for me as Badger. I have to crank mine a few turns to line up. Also, I gave up using a bolt because of the right tolerance and just use a big ass Phillips. Once through the hole, I crank the winch to rest the keel weight on the screwdriver so it won’t come out. That said, I only pin mine in big wind and deep water.

[Steve]

If you have to crank up the keel a bit to get the keel and trunk lock down pin holes to align, you can thicken the "stop pin," the pin on which the keel rests when you let it down. That pin has a rubber gasket around it to absorb some of the crash should the keel cable break and the keel falls. That gasket tends to crush and compress over the years from the weight of the keel resting on it. So you need either a thicker rubber gasket or you need to wrap something around it to make it thicker.