Gene, Jake, Unfortunately this is not so unusual, at least here near Toronto where things freeze solid in winter.
I first noticed this in the fall where I saw one 33-2 in the repair yard adjacent to our marina that had it so bad that the keel had cracked around the bolt head and a palm-sized chunk of lead had levered away from the casting by over 1/8". This piqued my curiosity, I checked mine carefully, and I noticed a slight bulge on one side, at the head (base) of the second (iirc) keel bolt. I walked around the marina and saw several C&Cs of similar vintage (mid 80's) with various stages of this problem. I photographed them all. Mine was quite mild, but when asked the aforementioned local yard quoted me a large sum to repair, but declined to tell me exactly what they would do. The yard stated that the keelsmith used crappy lead, full of inclusions and voids, and this contributed to the problem in boats of this vintage. I called the keel-smith, Mars Metals, and they advised that this was a known issue in freezing areas, and was caused by poorly maintained keels. They proposed keel detachment, heating and reforming the lead in the subject area. Can't recall the price, but large. The problem is, as you can probably imagine, water migrating down the keel bolt and filling any voids in the casting, then freezing. Bigger voids, a bigger problem, and embiggened with each freeze thaw cycle. I ground mine fair, bored a few small holes along the hairline cracks I saw and injected some epoxy to occupy any voids. I built up epoxy and then interprotect over the surface. At the time I was doing keelwork, so I took care to bed and seal well, and further, I glassed and epoxied over the length of keel/hull joint, and faired that. I doubt I'll have (or have had) a problem with it in my lifetime, but I would certainly not ignore it. Dave Message: 4 Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 20:57:19 -0400 From: "Jake Brodersen" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Stus-List Keel bulge around near keel bolt Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Gene, This is certainly an unusual problem, at least for this list. I can think of two things that might cause the bulge, water intrusion or rust. This may be a combination of the two. There is certainly something going on around the keel bolt. Drilling into the cavity may reveal the cause. In any case, holes are easy to fill. Time for some exploratory surgery. Jake Jake Brodersen C&C 35 Mk-III ?Midnight Mistress? Hampton VA From: CnC-List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Eugene Fodor via CnC-List Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2016 12:26 To: [email protected] Cc: Eugene Fodor <[email protected]> Subject: Stus-List Keel bulge around near keel bolt Hi There, I'm looking to get some opinions on how to treat some bulging around one of my keel bolts. It is symmetrical and I believe it is from a small amount of water intrusion around the bolt and then freezing during the winter. The recommendation from the marina was to drill holes into the bulge and drain and then fill with epoxy and hammer it in so that it drives deep into the gaps. And then remove the keel nuts in the bilge and epoxy around the bolt base to fill any gaps and prevent further intrusion. Anyone else have this problem? What did you do and was it effective? Thanks, Gene Fodor
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