Drilling a few holes for the keel bolts should just be another job, shouldn’t it.
BUT, if you have a phobia about drilling any holes in your hull; And if the holes need to match those already drilled in the lead keel; And the auger bit has to go through 18-28 cm of Iroko. Then images of drills wandering off course and a keel hanging skew whiff off the bottom of the boat which then never ever sits level on the water come to the fore.
So, in order to reduce the scope for error, I decided making a jig was in order. A strip of wood with 4 holes drilled in a line and the correct distance apart was clamped to the hull.
I marked the entry point for each hole vertically below my guide hole using a plumb bob as below.
Then drill away.
The first one took me about 15 minutes of drilling.
Then with the confidence of having seen the bit appear below in the centre of the keep, the rest took much les time.
The sternmost hole needed an extension to the bit because the bulkhead was in the way.
The photo below shows the holes drilled with swarf in place
And below, all cleaned up ready for the keel bolts.
That was an mentally exhausting day!
The next challenge is to get the 750Kg of keel in place, married up and bolted!