I spent the better part of the weekend (ok, the entire weekend) getting this in. It is plumb, square and .....true? In any case, it is "right" in all three dimensions.
Tim Reiter (www.i550sportboat.com) made a good suggestion to raise the boat and hang the keel foil out of the bottom of the boat along w/ plumb bobs at the bow and stern on center line to check for square and twist. I felt I could get the same results by not lifting the boat, but just letting the foil stick up from the sleeve and check that way. It's easier to lift the foil than the boat.
I was also cognisant of Kevin's issue of finding out later that the keel bound up in the sleeve. (His blog is http://www.i550pipedream.blogspot.com/ and I could pretty much recite every entry he made from memory at this point.) If it slides through now, I should be able to avoid those issues later.
I did find that even though the sleeve slipped around the foil, and the sleeve fit into the reinforcing hardwood at the base and top of the sleeve, and these all fit with the hole in the bottom of the boat.......something odd happens when you put all those components together. There is a subtle compounding effect that makes the openning smaller just because there are all those pieces. And so after dry fitting a few times and sanding, planing, routing, filing, and sawing a little bit more each time, I finally got a snug, but not too snug fit.
Now I rest, and pray that the 2 layers of plastic around the keel foil were enough to prevent it from being bonded in place!!!!
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