Do you have the option of indoor storage through the winter, if you hauled her out now? I notice you're in MI- I know some boats up there come out into dry storage for the winter.
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Do you have the option of indoor storage through the winter, if you hauled her out now? I notice you're in MI- I know some boats up there come out into dry storage for the winter.
hauled boat out and there is not even a scratch on the hull, entire bottom paint is intact, where else should i look to where water may be coming in? Thanks
I would open up the keel; I suspect you'll find a lot of water in there. Drying it out thoroughly and repairing any leaks is a complex process which will take a while. Like weeks. Getting the keel thoroughly dried out takes a while.
Prior keel damage could have been repaired but the water remained.
I wonder if someone mounted a bilge switch or similar and penetrated through into the keel, the skin between the foam filled keel and bilge area seems quite thin on my boat. Over the years enough water will weep through a screw hole to fill the spaces around the foam filled keel.
When we did the keel repair in my boat, the foam that had originally filled the keel was deteriorated and it was full of water. The hardest part of the repair was drying out the keel. It took forever. Two weeks in ninety-degree heat, with a shop vac pulling air through it 24/7. Compared to all that, the repair was relatively easy.
My 34 had a keel leak. Would drip like crazy when hauled. Could not fix because water was always there. When we hauled for 10 months to refit it finally stopped and we repaired. Has not ever recurred.
Hello, my 42c had water in the keel every fall at haul out and drove me nuts looking for the leak. I have a drain plug in it, don't know it that's factory or not. I finally found that any water from the stuffing boxes would run to the center bilge and into the keel from screw holes holding down the center bilge pump. I reglassed the floor over the holes and made brackets to hold the pump and float switch, last fall only a few drips out of the drain. I think it was from the wet foam in the keel, no keel damage and it never leaked when hauled before removing the drain plug.
Since you have water entering from the keel area it may be that you have a drain plug and it is leaking from there and water pressure has filled the keel and its coming from a prior screw hole in the floor.
Walt Hoover
I just reread your first post and will add another finding of mine since you also have water under an engine. I found a small hole in the limber tube that runs under my port engine. any water in the bilge area forward of that engine would weep out that hole, I just discovered this last weekend. I gave it a sanding and used marinetex to fill that.
Walt Hoover