Swan 38 keel Dear all,
I am sitting in Puerto Mogan on Gran Canaria, and Swante is on the hard. There seems to have been too much cracks in the forward and aft end of the keel, and after the areas have been stripped, there was quite a lot of moisture coming out. See the uploded pics which show the situation. The people helping me with this want to clean completely between the keel and the hull, and in order to do this, they want to drop the keel about 20 mm. Then they want to embed the keel in epoxy, and seal off the area between the keel and the hull with fiber glass/epoxy. Reading what others have done with similar problems, I am very unsure if I want to go ahead with this, and any advice would be most welcome.
Also, there is moisture in the rudder and the skeg, and if anyone has could offer advice on what should be done here, It would would be most appreciated.
If you saw my postings and pictures of removing the keel from Sarabande 47/029 on the forum, you will have got some idea of my reasons for going all the way and removing the keel. If the blackness in your pictures is the dampness you refer to, then it looks like bilge water to me and could be coming from inside the boat. If that is the case, I think you need to check your bilge for cracks and all the keel bolts from inside.
When we re bedded the Keel, we used Sika on the interface of hull and keel and then epoxied and re -faired the whole keel and lower section of the hull. So far it has shown no more signs of cracking or water ingress.
Dear Terje
How far in from the lead edges can you push a thin knife? When doing this test the boat needs to be lifted so the keel comes off the ground. Are there leaking keel bolts?
Kind regards
Lars
Dear Lars, Rob;
Thank you for that. The boat was hanging in the sling this afternoon, and there was no gap in the middle, no increased gap in the front, but about 2 mm gap at the aft end of the keel. I do not have any leak at the bolts, can leave the boat for a month and return to almost dry bilge.
Part of my worry right now is that this place does not have the kind of infrastructure I would like to have available if the keel should be dropped. Even the slightest.
What I would like is for the gap at the aft end to be cleaned as good as can be done and then make a slight groove between hull and keel and then cover with epoxy/glass fibre. Any comments to this?
Dear Terje
I would suggest that you need to tension the aftermost and forwardmost keelbolts in order to close the gaps. There are instructions on this forum.
If the cracking is only in the ends there is hardly a need to drop the keel.
Kind regards
Lars
Lars must be right, my experience with Sarabande was that when we did remove the keel, it exposed the interface which was clean and good with the exception of the aftmost bolt. I had previously attempted to seal this by: loosening the aft bolt, lifting the boat to take the weight off the keel, and then cleaned the gap as best I could ( 4-5 mm) and then apply Sika before lowering back on to the keel and re-tightening. This proved only to be a temporary measure because in the case of Sarabande I had large wear and cracking in bilge in the vicinity of the aft bolt. The rest was fine, despite the usual small cracks on the outside fore and aft.
