Leaky Bilge and Cracked Keel

[RichW]

When I set my 1977 Endeavour 32 up on dry dock this year, we tilted it back as usual to help the scuppers to drain. There were two 8” blocks under the keel, spaced about 1/3 each. The bottom of the keel must have cracked open as we laid the boat back on the rear block and about a gallon of water drained out the bottom of the keel, which I believe came from the bilge, because the bilge was bone dry when I looked. I added more water to the bilge and it immediately drained out the keel.

My plan is to re-line the bilge with some good membrane, dry the keel void and apply some neat resin and fix the bottom of the keel. I like to get some advice on all of this. The keel void might have been holding water for a while, and maybe not.

“The 1977 E32 keel has a 5000 lb lead ballast encapsulated with solid poly fiberglass. The keel is molded integrally with the hull and all ballast is contained inside.” The keel is probably void, aft of the lead ballast.

[Vasco]

You really should find the crack, dry it out, grind and re-glass. Have seen this happen on a few encapsulated keels. Will only get worse if water's still there and it freezes.

It may be that the damage was from a grounding and not from blocking.

[delmarrey]

Originally Posted by RichW

When I set my 1977 Endeavour 32 up on dry dock this year, we tilted it back as usual to help the scuppers to drain. There were two 8” blocks under the keel, spaced about 1/3 each. The bottom of the keel must have cracked open as we laid the boat back on the rear block and about a gallon of water drained out the bottom of the keel, which I believe came from the bilge, because the bilge was bone dry when I looked. I added more water to the bilge and it immediately drained out the keel.

If this is the case then sea water would have been seeping into your bilge up to the waterline. Has your bilge pump been running a lot????

I would find the crack and pick into it a ways to see if any SEA LIFE has worked it's way into the keel. If so you'll want to bleach out the passage (pouring bleach into the bilge and letting it drain out the crack) to kill any life in there.

After a good drying out, epoxy coat with thinned out epoxy (runs into the cracks deeper) the bilge where you suspect (and more) where the water had been seeping thru.

On the keel, grind out the crack fairly deep, fill it with epoxy filler, then glass over the bottom of the keel using epoxy resin. As said above you don't want any water between the laminates durning a freeze.

If you leave the boat at the dock (summers) and the bilge pump were to fail it could sink the boat.

[RichW]

The bilge pump did not run very often. I don't use shore power and my batteries were always charged. It's curious to me that the bilge and the hull would crack at the same time during the haul out. What ever happened, I have a gut feeling that there is more decay in the keel void than I know about. I was thinking perhaps to cut out the entire bottom of the bilge to get access to the void in the keel and let it dry, as well as opening up the crack in the keel bottom. I don't know if the bilge provides any structural integrity to the hull, or if it just hangs there. Any advice on this?

[roverhi]

On most boats, the ballast is forward in the keel area with an open sump at the back. This open sump area is not designed to take the weight of the boat. It sounds like the rear block was too far back under this hollow section and caused the area to crack when you put all the weight on the rear block.

Fixing it will require laminating new fiberglass around the outside of the keel in the area where it is cracked. Grind down the outside of the keel and lay-up new glass using woven roving, matt, and cloth. Probably best to use epoxy resin as it will stick to the fiberglass better than polyester resin and is water proof so you can just paint over it when your done. Polyester resin is not 'Waterproof' so should have a sealant over it like an expoxy barrier coat or gel coat.

I'd make sure of the cause of the problem before I went to all the trouble, however. If possible, move the rear block forward where it wil be bearing on the ballasted section of the keel and see what you can see. May take lifting with the travel lift to get you enough room to see. Will require taller blocking in any case to do the laminating if required.

[S/V_Surya]

I had to totally rebuild my bilge when I bought my hurricane damaged gulfstar. It also has an encapsulated keel. I cut away all of the lower keel behind (cement) and rebuilt bilge not that you will have to go that far. Of course it leaked like a sieve with all the voids. But was strong. My final step was to use 1.5 gal of penetrating epoxy with plenty of sand to fill voids. I think I got it from progressive epoxy. I calculated this put 1.5 inches of epoxy filler layer in botom of bilge. Sealed it up nice and tight The sand was for the heat as it is an exothermic reaction.

My thought was bilge is not really structural as it will only encounter side loads when sailing and then only compressive loads when on the hard. So far I have not seen or had any problems. I am going to post some pictures one of these days.