Centreplate & Rudder
The centreplate (lifting keel) and rudder of a Shrimper can suffer much abuse, but remain largely unseen. Regular maintenance is essential as failure of the pivot bolts and/or lifting cables is, at best, inconvenient and can be much worse.
The following links provide guidance for maintaining and replacing these essential parts.
Replacing the centreplate wire
Dyneema centreplate wire alternative
Centreplate refurbishment is often seen as a major task, but with good planning it is well within the scope of a competant owner. Here are a few case histories.
Refurbishing Folly's Centreplate
Winkle's Centreplate Refurbishment
The GRP in way of the sheave mounting at the top of centreplate case can get damaged if the hoist wire slips. Not an easy repair, so one owner's solution was to cut away the damaged GRP and replace with a custom wooden sheave mounting. This is how it was done.
Replacement centreplate sheave mounting
Robin Whittle (Bumble Chugger 124) had a sticking centreplate in his 1983 Shrimper and found that corrosion of the internal ballast was to blame. This is the full story of how he solved the problem by cutting out the internal ballast and replacing it with new.
Steve Kane (Percy, 264) suffered a jammed centreplate, also caused by ballast corrosion. He offers a few tips based on his experiences to help make this horrible job a little easier.
