[Rhodes22-list] It must be spring (Centerboard saga Ch. 1- questions)

[Mary Lou Troy]

OK it's the first warm day since the snow melted down to a reasonable amount.

Fred went out and started poking about the boat in preparation for removing 
the centerboard so we can paint the board and the trunk with new 
antifouling and replace the pennant.

He removed the wood over the centerboard trunk and found a surprise. 
Question for any of you who have done this: Do you have a 1 1/4 in. 
diameter hole in the centerboard cap filled with a nifty mechanical 
stopper? The stopper is not in great shape and Fred says he doesn't think 
it would have held out a lot of water under pressure.

Any ideas on what the purpose of this might be? I looked through the 
archives and couldn't find any reference to such a critter. We are now 
pondering how to replace this.

If there's interest and no ready answer, I can supply pictures for 
speculative purposes.

Mary Lou
1991 R22 Fretless
Ft. Washington, PA / Swan Creek, MD