This past summer I was not paying attention to the charts in northern Green Bay, got a bit too close to land and ran hard into some submeregd rocks. Nerver grounded but Wetlands shook as never before.
The scar noted after she was hauled for the winter is slightly smaller than the size of a fist and at the leading edge at the bottom of the keel. the glass was knocked off and the lead is exposed. She has a fin keel.
Has anyone had any experience with this kind of damage and more importantly can you recommed a product & process for repairing the damage? The weather has finally gotten better here and I'm heading to start the spring commissioning and need to adress this matter. Thanks for your help!
Gary Welch; Wetlands 1995 # 1480
Gary Welch
Wetlands II, 1995 MarkII #1480
Sailing out of Kenosha, WI
Gary:
I had something similar happen on our first boat which was a Catalina 30. The bottom of the keel was all lead and I just took a rasp file and took off the high marks then used thickened West Epoxy to fill the small dent. I just made sure it was clean and free of dirt or anything else. After it hardened, Then you can reshape the epoxy and re bottom paint it. I actually just repaired a small crack on our 36 yesterday the same way. It works well for me.
Do you see any fine lines up at the top part of the keel to where it is fared into the bottom side of the boat? If you do , you might want to take a look inside where your keel bolts are fastened and see if any epoxy is cracked. Indicating that the keel tired to pull out of the boat if struck hard enough. My front 2 nuts on the bolts are 15/16 and the rest were 1- 1/8.
Randy
Randy Sherwood
Mutualfun 1990 # 1057
T/R W/K M35a
Home. Charlotte, Mi.
Boat. St Augustine,Fl.
Thanks Randy. I checked the top of the keel and bolts already and everything is in good shape. I'm heading to the yard this am to start the repair and I was thinking the west product might be the answer. I'll clean it up and see how she looks before starting the repair.
Thanks again.
gw
Gary Welch
Wetlands II, 1995 MarkII #1480
Sailing out of Kenosha, WI
Make sure to give a good look at the hull at the the trailing edge of the keel. When you take a hit at the bottom of the leading edge this is where the stress will concentrate as it try to stuff the aft edge of the keel up thru the hull. Not likely to have caused any damage as this is a pretty beefy area. I smacked into a concrete block at hull speed on my little Santana 20, brought the boat to a complete stop. I later found a frame at the aft attach bolts for the keel had delaminated from the hull. This was a known weak area on the Tuna 20.
Cepheus dream
C36 MK I # 825
MK I Tech Editor No Mas
I have also dented the keel on occasion. Once my fault, once the fault of the guy driving the haul-out trailer. I did almost the same thing that Randy did to fix it. However, I used a can of epoxy with glass fibers premixed in it to give the epoxy some bulk. The West System manual (an excellent resource) recommends that you wire brush the lead just before applying the epoxy so that you have an un-oxidized surface to bond to. Once I filled up the dent with the epoxy, I used marine grade filler to fair it in. The filler smooths much easier than the glass filled epoxy, but will not bond well to the lead on its own.
Dave
Dave
Ballena 1995 Mk II #1445