Repairing a loose keel on an older Cal 27

[Scorpius]

Originally Posted by vectorfins

https://www.professionalplastics.com/contact

Thank you!

[Scorpius]

Originally Posted by vectorfins

https://www.professionalplastics.com/contact

Thanks!

[nortonscove]

Originally Posted by Spot

I am wondering if some sort of fiberglass tubes around the keel bolts would help to start the repair of the egged-out holes. Use the tube to mark center so to speak, glass them in, and fill in/patch the rest. I am also wondering about stainless backing plates being subject to crevice corrosion effects from not getting air to the one side.

Do not do this. You have to remove a significant amount of glass. Bevel it to at least 8:1 but I would do more than 12:1. My preference is to put the largest cloth in first and build back to small as I want to have the best and most contact between the old and new glass. Clean the area with acetone as it will allow better adhesion. Make a large x in the bilge with a marker to show where the bolt hole has to be drilled. You can complete the x once you've removed the necessary area with a grinder and done the repair.

[Spot]

Originally Posted by nortonscove

Do not do this. You have to remove a significant amount of glass. Bevel it to at least 8:1 but I would do more than 12:1. My preference is to put the largest cloth in first and build back to small as I want to have the best and most contact between the old and new glass. Clean the area with acetone as it will allow better adhesion. Make a large x in the bilge with a marker to show where the bolt hole has to be drilled. You can complete the x once you've removed the necessary area with a grinder and done the repair.

Thanks, I think I follow you. Make a BIG X, that extends way beyond any grinding and/or glassing. Grind, glass, then connect the dots so to speak to locate bolt hole.

[jimbojonesbos]

Somebody needs to say this so it might as well be me. I say this with peace and love but ; scrap the boat. Old Catalina 27s are a dime a dozen. You will never recoup the cost of the repair , ever. It will likely exceed the value of the boat. Heck dropping the keel probably did that already. Scrap the keel, part out the boat, and sawzall the hull into a dumpster. You will be ahead financially and you can pick up another for a couple thousand bucks.



If I only I had a time machine to give myself this advice in my earlier boat owning years....


Edit: this presumes by "older" we are talking 90s or before.

[Scorpius]

Originally Posted by jimbojonesbos

Somebody needs to say this so it might as well be me. I say this with peace and love but ; scrap the boat. Old Catalina 27s are a dime a dozen. You will never recoup the cost of the repair , ever. It will likely exceed the value of the boat. Heck dropping the keel probably did that already. Scrap the keel, part out the boat, and sawzall the hull into a dumpster. You will be ahead financially and you can pick up another for a couple thousand bucks.

If I only I had a time machine to give myself this advice in my earlier boat owning years....

Edit: this presumes by "older" we are talking 90s or before.

It's older all right: 1974 I believe. But these people love this boat.

This is DIY. We dropped the keel for the price of the lift (could have done it with just the stands). The keel, the keel stub and the bilge are all cleaned up. The fibreglas damage does not appear serious (structural). Mostly it's just wear egging some of the holes and a bit on the bottom of the keel stub, and the washers digging into the bilge. Our local fibreglas guy will fix that fairly quickly.

The owner is hardy and handy. He's a logger and runs a tree planting business. He and his wife have been out in the recent (rare) snow storm happily scraping the bottom down to gelcoat in preparation for painting. And today, still in the wet, soggy snow, he's off to cut some trees somewhere.

No, these folks love this boat and it's not about to go into a dumpster - yet. Besides, there's no need for a saws-all. The yard runs a boat disposal business ($120Cdn - about $80US a foot) and uses a big excavator to crush the victims and put them in the dumpster - after stripping everything useful or polluting.

We're confident the out-of-pocket costs of repairing her will be considerably less than the costs of scrapping her - and more environmentally friendly too!

[captlloyd]

Originally Posted by jimbojonesbos

Somebody needs to say this so it might as well be me. I say this with peace and love but ; scrap the boat. Old Catalina 27s are a dime a dozen. You will never recoup the cost of the repair , ever. It will likely exceed the value of the boat. Heck dropping the keel probably did that already. Scrap the keel, part out the boat, and sawzall the hull into a dumpster. You will be ahead financially and you can pick up another for a couple thousand bucks.



If I only I had a time machine to give myself this advice in my earlier boat owning years....


Edit: this presumes by "older" we are talking 90s or before.

Pretty sure the repair of this keel would not be more laborious than cutting the boat up with a sawzall.

[sv_pelagia]

Originally Posted by Scorpius

We are in a VERY remote area (Lund, BC) with a very small population.

Lund? VERY remote? There's a good road to it. Not far from Powell River. Campbell River and Comox almost visible.

I guess each have their own view of "remote".[emoji6] Bella Bella more remote (but an airport and ferry dock, and Shearwater nearby). Hartley Bay very remote (no roads, no airport, no repair/haulout). Tasu even more remote (no real road, no airport, no village/town, no facilities, and a very wild coast).

Is your (steel) boat on the hard at Jack's or in the water at Lund docks?

[Cheechako]

I would not use SS for the backing plate. It's a bad environment for SS. Even iron would be better. But heck a bronze plate or maybe a modern non metallic material like G10 or etc may be better.
I don't know that ovalized holes are a big deal. How much ovalized?
You can make fiberglass donuts by wrapping a layup on a rod or plastic pipe etc. then run a hole saw on the outside of the layup creating a nice even washer of sorts if you dont want to layup new material on the keel stub inside and out.

[pcmm]

First Question... As its a Catalina 27 did anyone check the plywood core in the stub? The Older Cat 27's had plywood coring in the keel stub at one point and this was a known week point and a documented repair on these boats.

[jimbojonesbos]

Originally Posted by Scorpius

It's older all right: 1974 I believe. But these people love this boat.

This is DIY. We dropped the keel for the price of the lift (could have done it with just the stands). The keel, the keel stub and the bilge are all cleaned up. The fibreglas damage does not appear serious (structural). Mostly it's just wear egging some of the holes and a bit on the bottom of the keel stub, and the washers digging into the bilge. Our local fibreglas guy will fix that fairly quickly.

The owner is hardy and handy. He's a logger and runs a tree planting business. He and his wife have been out in the recent (rare) snow storm happily scraping the bottom down to gelcoat in preparation for painting. And today, still in the wet, soggy snow, he's off to cut some trees somewhere.

No, these folks love this boat and it's not about to go into a dumpster - yet. Besides, there's no need for a saws-all. The yard runs a boat disposal business ($120Cdn - about $80US a foot) and uses a big excavator to crush the victims and put them in the dumpster - after stripping everything useful or polluting.

We're confident the out-of-pocket costs of repairing her will be considerably less than the costs of scrapping her - and more environmentally friendly too!

I get it, can't discount the emotional dimensions of boat ownership. Heck, if all of us made financially rational boat decisions, we'd probably all be chartering.
I do my best to remember that any boat I own is just an object used for recreation so that I don't make too many bad financial choices. But I completely understand where the owner is coming from.

[jimbojonesbos]

Originally Posted by captlloyd

Pretty sure the repair of this keel would not be more laborious than cutting the boat up with a sawzall.

local figure of speech apparently? Around here crushing it with a loader is also pretty standard but "sawzall the hull" just means to dispose of it.



But the value of an average 1970s catalina 27 where I live is about a 2,500, an exceptional one, maybe 10k. Most of the time when I see something like that it is for free or near to it on craigslist. With keel damage you would have to pay someone to remove it.



But can't put a price on love, if they love the boat then tear that keel stub apart and get glassing!

[jimbojonesbos]

definitely grind out the ovaled holes and reglass them from the inside. Don't try and fill them with epoxy or some other quick fix, losing a keel is a potentially life threatening event. Grind them out, build up the keel stub from the inside and drill fresh holes in the newly built up glass.



Also if the keel bolts are loose the correct way to fix them is no cake walk. Mars is one of the go to places for major keel surgery like that in North America.


https://marskeel.com/keel-repair/


Or go on craigslist and pick up a new C27 :-)

[jimbunyard]

If the holes are wallowed out severely, the problem isn't filling them, it's drilling them all out after filling so that they align with the existing keelbolts...

[jimbojonesbos]

Originally Posted by jimbunyard

If the holes are wallowed out severely, the problem isn't filling them, it's drilling them all out after filling so that they align with the existing keelbolts...

yeah you would have to make a high quality jig/template off the keel, but that shouldn't be too hard. First use cardboard, then from the cardboard make one in ply, check the alignment on the ply template , repeat as necessary until it slides on to the keel bolts perfectly, then use it as a jig to drill the new holes. Finicky, possibly tedious ,but not a hard task. Worst part would be the grinding of the old glass in preparation for rebuilding the structure around the old holes. At least for me, my glass grinding days are over.



But if the keel bolts are loose in the keel.... I can't say enough times that would not be worth trying to repair on a C27. Even if the owner is really emotionally attached to that hull it would conceivably be better/cheaper/easier to buy another C27 just for a keel with good bolts than it would be to replace the keel bolts.