My (new to me) Bayfield 32 came with a
hull zinc bolted to the side of the
keel. The zinc was one of those 6" x 4" x 1/2" deals with about 6 different holes so it can be bolted in a number of different installations. Anyway, the zinc bolts to the side of the
keel in the area of the keel that is (supposed to be) encapsulated. This part of the keel has the lead ballast in it. The bolts for the zinc go into the keel into "some kind of metal" (can't tell from the outside what it is). Whoever installed the last zinc stripped the threads in the encapsulated plate and botched things up by trying to use a larger diameter bolt to fasten the zinc. They (attempted) to seal things up with a bunch of
sealant around / behind the zinc plate. The metal plate in the keel is connected to a bolt in the
bilge above it and is the central bonding point for the
boat. It seems to me I have two options: Option 1) drill and tap the exiting encapsulated plate to the next size bolt (5/16"). Then install studs sealed to the
hull with 5200-washers-nuts. Then install the new zinc plate over the nuts and with additional washers and nuts. Perhaps I should recess the back of the new zinc plate to allow for the nuts between the hull and zinc so the zinc plate would be flush to the hull. The negative of this approach is that without access to the inside of the keel here, I can't seal the inside. I can only seal the studs to the hull under the capture washers and nuts. Option 2) Abandon the existing zinc plate location.
Repair / fill / glass over the existing holes in the encapsulated portion of the hull and move back to the deep
bilge part of the hull. Here I could drill new holes and attach a zinc plate with a stainless backing plate inside the deep bilge. Then connect this plate to the existing central bonding point that is forward in the shallow bilge (over the encapsulated keel). The negative of this approach is that I don't have much room in the deep bilge as it is and this very small area already has 2 bilge pumps in it. I'm not sure which is the best approach here. The added fly in the soup here is that the keel had
water in it. I'm pretty sure that the
water go in there from in the bilge above it as the water that came out was clear and soapy. I think this was the soapy water from my
cleaning this bilge of the remnants of a previous owners "holding tank incident". (A whole 'nuther story!) This bilge is not normally accessible except that I have some of the
fiberglass pan / sole cut out due to
rot in the
core. Hopefully this all makes sense. Thanks for any
advice.
- Tom