New Centre Plate

The new centre plate is done. Here it is together with the old, badly-corroded plate.

The new centre plate (22 kg) and the old one (15 kg)

The new plate was cut from 8mm mild steel by Marcel Harting. He has a great shipyard (http://www.jachtwerfharting.nl/) and is really helpful. It was well worth driving over 200 km each way.
To my surprise, it even fitted perfectly without any further adjustments! It will raise and lower smoothly, especially after I have coated it in epoxy. The additional 7 kg of ballast cannot do any harm either.
Below is a drawing of the plate. Feel free to e-mail me if you want to have the Google SketchUp file.

Drawing of the centre plate.

I hope to be able to get the keel sand-blasted in a couple of days and then the coating will start.