Leak in Crown 28 (hull/keel joint?)

[nilten]

I'm trying to find the source of a below-waterline leak on my recently purchased 1978 Crown 28 sailboat (supposedly very similar to a Cal 2-27).

Just sitting in the water, the bilge will very slowly fill with water: probably less than a pint over the course of a week. Motoring around doesn't seem to accelerate water ingress significantly.

However, going sailing leads to massive amounts of water coming in! After about 2.5 hours under sail recently, we emptied at least 8 gallons of water. The previous owner says he never had any such problems.

I have checked all the through-hulls, and none of them seem to be leaking. Given that the leak is made much worse when sailing, I'm figuring that this is coming from the force on the keel, and the leak is somehow related to the hull/keel joint. Before we haul out, I'd like to have a better idea of what exactly might be causing the leak (and how we could then repair it).

Several months ago, we had a haul out done for insurance purposes. The surveyor pointed out some cracking at the beginning of the hull/keel joint as a potential future problem, see here for a photo:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hc...SIaD6hAsxdHC9k

The keel is attached by (I think) 16 bolts, in 2 rows of 8. The bolts come all the way up through the hull liner; I'm not sure what is directly under the hull liner. Here's a picture of one of the bolts and the hull liner:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jk...St8BpjRUq3KIl0

Any advice or suggestions are appreciated!
Thanks,
Nathan

[VanCarl]

Originally Posted by nilten

I'm trying to find the source of a below-waterline leak on my recently purchased 1978 Crown 28 sailboat (supposedly very similar to a Cal 2-27).

Just sitting in the water, the bilge will very slowly fill with water: probably less than a pint over the course of a week. Motoring around doesn't seem to accelerate water ingress significantly.

However, going sailing leads to massive amounts of water coming in! After about 2.5 hours under sail recently, we emptied at least 8 gallons of water. The previous owner says he never had any such problems.

I have checked all the through-hulls, and none of them seem to be leaking. Given that the leak is made much worse when sailing, I'm figuring that this is coming from the force on the keel, and the leak is somehow related to the hull/keel joint. Before we haul out, I'd like to have a better idea of what exactly might be causing the leak (and how we could then repair it).

Several months ago, we had a haul out done for insurance purposes. The surveyor pointed out some cracking at the beginning of the hull/keel joint as a potential future problem, see here for a photo:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hc...SIaD6hAsxdHC9k

The keel is attached by (I think) 16 bolts, in 2 rows of 8. The bolts come all the way up through the hull liner; I'm not sure what is directly under the hull liner. Here's a picture of one of the bolts and the hull liner:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jk...St8BpjRUq3KIl0

Any advice or suggestions are appreciated!
Thanks,
Nathan

I’m looking after a Crown 28 for my sailing coop and we seem to have the same problem, a leak coming through the keel bolts. Were you able to fix it on your boat?

At this point our plan is as follows:
-Haul the boat out
-Pull the keel bolts one by one, inspect them and the bolt holes in the flange and reinstall them with a liberal amount of sealant around them.
-Remove the epoxy fairing compound around the edge of the flange and replace it with a thick bead of flexible sealant.
Any suggestions and comments would be very welcome