Hi, am an new owner of a 1975 Catalina 27. Have experience in trucking and the
boat was loaded wrong. With it being on the back of the trailer it was like a
spring board and the boat was bounced hard on its keel to the point that it
fracured the lamination at the point it cracked. The driver had a really rough
ride in the cab coming up and knew something was wrong.
DHoy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: This is to confirm what Harvey said. That
after area where the keel joins the hull is thin and subject to lateral
cracking (athwartship) such as will occur with hard grounding. From what Jon
reported I would suspect the boat was slammed forward in a similar fashion to a
grounding causing the bow to drop raising the after end and the resultant
weight of the stern cracking this area.
Dave Hoy
WYANOKEE #6295
Camden, Maine
Harvey Rosenberg wrote: Hi Jon,
It's not perplexing. I've been there. And I've seen another C-27 with the same
problem caused by a grounding. That area of the keel is very narrow and
sometimes will have a void in the fiberglass layup. That makes the area from
the aft end of the keel to the aft end of the sump area very susceptible to
cracks from flexing pressure. The boat has a natural flexibility. For
instance, when my boat leaked while in the water there was a very small leak.
We put it in the slings and filled the sump with water and you could see the
flexing of the hull, and the crack widened and water came out in greater force
then originally coming in.
A professional ground down the end of the keel and the hull aft of the keel
and repaired it with epoxy. He put a deck plate in the cabin sole aft of the
sump and sloshed it and the sump with epoxy. That sump is very difficult to
get at. The deck plate gives you an idea of whether water is coming from the
aft part of the boat or the the aft end of the sump, which would indicate a
recurrence of the leak. I also have painted the area with white antifouling
paint to make any cracks more visible.
The repair lasted 17 years and then had to be repeated in a small area.
The second repair was related to a only portion of the 1st repair and was done
with polyester.
I believe my problem occurred during a winter layup when a friend, thinking my
stands were loose, over tightened them, causing hull to over flex. I now use
more than 4 stands, never a bow stand and keep them somewhat "relaxed".
The other C-27 had a better idea, Not only did they grind it down, they built
the area up about an inch more on each side of the keel's original layup,
resulting in mini keel stub on the aft end of the keel. When I suggested this
to my repair guys they poo poo'd me. But I think it's the best possible
permanent solution.
Hope this helps.
Harvey Rosenberg C-27TR 1985, #6023 M-18, Stony Point NY
------ Original Message ------
Received: Wed, 01 Aug 2007 10:57:30 PM EDT
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: catalina27-talk: Perplexing keel problem after long distance hauling
Listees:
I have a serious but perplexing problem resulting from the long-distance haul
of my 1975 C-27. I need your advice.
The boat was hauled from North Carolina to Boston in mid-July, essentially a
return home for the boat and for us. Somewhere along the way the boat was
damaged. When the boat arrived it was lifted off the flatbed and put in the
water. It immediately began to take on water--lots of it. After taking it out
of the water, we discovered a crack at the extreme aft end of the keel at the
hull (at the point where the hull begins to curve down to shape the narrow end
of the keel--perhaps an inch or two down that curve). The crack was only
several inches long around that aft end, perhaps four inches long in all, sort
of shaped like a "u". The leak showed at the inside at the extreme aft end of
the bilge in the passage (under the interior deck) between it and the engine
compartment (boat has an A-4). While the pump kept on top of the leak, it did
so only barely.
A few words about the delivery: The boat had been located on the extreme aft
end of the trailer. A power boat was placed on the front. The inside of the
boat was an absolute mess. Things that I had carefully stowed were strewn about
the boat. Items stowed deep in the after quarter berth were all over the salon
floor in the forward part of the boat. It was an amazing sight that got worse
when the water seeped up from the bilge. Clearly the boat had a very rough
trip.
When the boat was first on stands, I was able to ply out some resin from the
hull crack and thought maybe I could make a temporary patch to get it across
Dorchester Bay to my yacht club. I used Marine Tex. The fix looked good, but as
soon as the hydraulic trailer begin to lift it from the stands and blocks, it
cracked with a "snap." It had returned. After a short haul on a hydraulic
trailer to the club, I removed the broken Marine Tex, opened the crack up as
best I could, and we used West (resin, filler) and some cloth and fashioned a
repair. When it was sealed on the outside, using a flashlight, I was able to
locate what seemed to be a crack of sorts in the bilge in that passage leading
to the engine compartment, where it seemed the water had come in. I poured
resin into it, hoping it would seep down.
Today, when we lifted the boat off the stands to put it in the water, the
same thing happened, a snap, and then a 1/8 in wide, several inch long crack
appeared. This work was done by someone with a great deal of experience using
West resins.
What is going on? The bilge looks fine. Four years ago, I employed the
Catalina Direct keel bolt upgrade and installed ss lags. I did this only as a
precaution because the original bolts looked, well, rusted, but no worse than
other Catalinas. My bilge has always been clean and dry. I see nothing amiss
there now. There is no Catalina smile on this boat an no other external
indications of a problem anywhere along the keel.
Jon
C-27 1858
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