Keel Repair

[kwerges]

During the haul-out for maintenance described in a previous thread, the yard power washed the bottom of my boat, only to find a crack in the aft end of the keel. The yard manager says it appears it has been leaking water. The crack was apparently hidden by the newer bottom paint on the boat when I bought it (paint drips and all). Regardless, the boat yard says its an easy fix. I seem to remember other threads where the author refered to allowing the fiberglass to dry out, which leads to my first question. How long must the boat be out of the water to allow for any drying to occur? Second question, looking at the bilge floor, it appears to be a shallow vee, not nearly as deep as the keel. Where does the water leak in to/out of? Sorry for the dumb questions...just want to understand. (Picture of the cracked keel attached, I hope...maybe not)

[Boss Lady]

The keel is hollow with a foam core. Mine was full of water. I am sure most of them are, since there is no way to pump the water out of it since it is below the bilge. Maybe Paul can elaborate on this.

[(Nobody You Know)]

Not a dumb question at all!

Drying generaly takes weeks, like 5-7 in the winter, but more in the humid summer months.

Yours is a unique situation. Some of the moisture could be originating from the bilge above the core layers of hull build up. Regardless, you definetly need to get to the bottom of this (no pun intended). I'd locate a really good marine surveyor to track down the origination of the moisture and the extent of penetration (and damage if any). And then get it fixed RIGHT.

In the end this investment (and information) will be valuable when the day comes to sell the boat (hopefully not sooner than later).

Good luck!

[kwerges]

Capt'n Bill-
You lost me a little...If there is a crack in the bottom of the keel, why would I look to see if there was a leak from the bilge, or am I looking for secondary leaks? And what did you mean by "above the core layers of the hull buildup?" Again, new to this and want to understand...

[Akyla]

Your crack is the standard Hatteras Keel crack caused by a grounding or a past improper blocking in the yard. As previously stated that area of the keel is hollow and originally filled with foam making it vunerable to damage and it tends to split open just like in your photo. Don't panic as it is not the end of your boat and it can be fairly easily repaired to be good or better than new. Looking at your photo I don't believe there is water coming form the bilge as this is due to damage as stated above.

It needs to be opened up a bit and then dried out for a few days for the repair to be made. Just grind the crack open to good material and watch the water run out. It will take a day or so for the dripping to stop and you can speed this up using a good old shop vac attached to the crack and left on for some time. You can also drill some extra drain holes into the foamed space to help get the water to run out. Once water isn't running you can let it dry some more naturally if you like or use a heat lamp to help dry out the material you will be bonding the expoy and glass to. Then just make a repair of the crack and fair it out a bit then bottom paint again.

Once repaired you won't see it again unless you run aground hard or let them block it at the end of the keel - always block ahead of that last two or three feet.

Good luck with it.

[Starman]

I concur.

The keel is hollow, and filled with foam. Then a 3/4 " of plywood was glassed in above the foam. Above this is you water and center fuel tank. The problem is when the water and center tanks are glassed in, they are not glassed in such a way as to prevent interior bilge water from seeping on top of that glassed in plywood, where it eventually finds its way into the foam in the keel.

You will find that in many areas of the keel there may be an inch thick of solid "mud" , (no fiberglass) , before you can grind deep enough to hit the real fiberglass roven.

Just grind it to where the crack is gone, then epoxy on several torn pieces of matt cloth to build the area up, then use west system with 404 to fill in the small areas. Sand, prime, paint.

Nothing to get worried about.

On Boss lady I drilled 2 one inch holes in the foamed area of the keel and the water "gushed out" !!

[kwerges]

Thanks soo much for the explanations and suggestions. Seeing a crack in the keel like this causes momentarily illness for the inexperienced, followed by stress and worry, then panic in fixing it correctly. Apparently there are stages of grief when my Hatteras is "sick," somewhat like the worry process when my kids were sick. Your comments and suggestions are appreciated. Any other suggestions???

[egaito]

This explains a bit for me as well....I've always had one small "blister" on my keel, about the size of a quarter, that weeps when the boat is out of the water......

It's so small and consistent, I've never bothered to fix it.

[jim rosenthal]

Do a search on this forum, I posted a while back about how I did this repair on my 36C at least ten years ago. Holding fine. The drying is the most important part; I drilled two one-inch holes in the sides of the keel and then hooked up a shop vac to pull air through it and let it run there for about two weeks. It drove everyone nuts but it really dried the keel out.

Careful with the heat lamp. Air is best, no offense to anyone.

If you can't find the repair post, PM me and I will describe it to you. It takes a while, but it has held up faultlessly.

[Akyla]

Hey, no offense taken....

Just suggested that if he needs to get the exposed glass dry once he grinds it out if he doesn't have time to wait for the air dry. The heat lamp will dry the surface of the exposed glass enough to make a bond, though the interior of the keel space will still be wet.

The shop vac trick is the ticket to get it all dry if you have the time. It took mine about a day or so on the vac to do well enough to close it up and feel good about it.