Rust on Keel - how to proceed?

[LiveCat6]

Hi All,

First time posting.

https://imgur.com/a/XaTY0mr

Purchased this 1980 CS Yachts 27 footer last summer. Now that it's on the hard i see some rust in a criss-cross pattern on the keel where it seems to connect to the hull of the boat.

What should I do about this?

Also I'm planning to sand my antifoul down and re-apply anti-foul before launching in the spring.

[psk125]

That should probably be opened up with a disk sander/grinder, along with the other areas that look suspect & rough. Once cleaned out it will need filling back in with some epoxy-goop and then painting with a barrier coat, followed by your antifouling. Should probably take a couple of weekends.

[JPA Cate]

Live Cat, first let me say I'm not a great expert, but I have seen some boats with steel ballast that have got wet, and the ballast expands from the rust. What I think I'm seeing there is a boat who had a collision with something that caused the owner to spend a lot of filler to cover up, and the repair has allowed water ingress. The cross-hatched rusty cracks are therefore of some considerable concern. If it is a ferrocement boat, I really don't know if it is reparable, because once the moisture starts to spread within the hull, the matrix is all affected. If it is just bog, maybe not that dire, but in either case, you'll want someone knowledgeable to take a look at it for you with an idea to the costs of repair.

Ann

[ShoreFun]

I am no expert by any means on boat stuff. I am experienced in antique cars and rust repair.

That screams to be ALL taken down to bare metal and glass and figure out what is there. I am thinking sand blasting cause of my car stuff, but do not know what is best for boats.

[dfelsent]

Cast iron keel bolted to fiberglass hull. No crisis here most likely.
That so called cross hatch is likely just a bunch of filler cracking. Many boats of this vintage have cracks at the trailing edge of the keel. If she were mine I would grind it all down, inspect, encapsulate, and recoat.
Check keel bolt torque while you are at it too.
If that gray is the bottom paint outer layer it is thicker than you want, long term I’d think about stripping back the paint.
Google says those boats often had osmotic blisters so think about barrier coating if you get around to stripping the bottom paint.
Have fun! And don’t panic.
Ps many many beneteaus have cast iron keels and look kinda like that.

[Steve Bean]

I agree with Shore Fun. Remove all rust and find out what has been covered up. Why is all of the hull that is visible so rough looking? If that finish reflects the quality of the repairs, I would not trust anything there without digging into it.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by LiveCat6

Hi All,

First time posting.

https://imgur.com/a/XaTY0mr

Purchased this 1980 CS Yachts 27 footer last summer. Now that it's on the hard i see some rust in a criss-cross pattern on the keel where it seems to connect to the hull of the boat.

What should I do about this?

Also I'm planning to sand my antifoul down and re-apply anti-foul before launching in the spring.

What to do? Well that doesn't look like a keel/hull join to me in in your first shot.... I would expect that to be linear rather than hatched. Also above that where there is a little bit more damage..is that still keel or is it hull..? Looks rusty to me...

Another thought... not familiar with this class... is the keel encapsulated? That would be a different game I know nothing about.

Anyway there is a massive build up of some coating or other on that keel. I would get it blasted back to grey metal, fill, epoxy, fair etc and then antifoul.
See my 'keel job' below......

I would also check your keel bolts at this time, maybe even drop the keel, and take your antifouling right off and start again with that as well...

Hope this helps
Ping

[deblen]

Originally Posted by LiveCat6

Hi All,

First time posting.

https://imgur.com/a/XaTY0mr

Purchased this 1980 CS Yachts 27 footer last summer. Now that it's on the hard i see some rust in a criss-cross pattern on the keel where it seems to connect to the hull of the boat.

What should I do about this?

Also I'm planning to sand my antifoul down and re-apply anti-foul before launching in the spring.

Google CS27sailboat. Lots of info on web. / Len


https://www.sailnet.com/forums/cs-ya...ssue-look.html

[Captain Caliamari]

I owned a CS 27 for a long time. Most likely the keel is cast iron. Test with a magnet.

It looks to me like someone has 'botched a ( so-called ) repair over existing compsite repairs.
All fibreglass boats will deteriorate over time. The place where the CS boats start to deteriorate is often aft the keel at the joining with the hull.
Tapping with a rubber hammer will tell you something about the hull condition( if it's thin) it will sound hollow.
You may have yellowing indicating the same.

There's really no substitute to taking it back to the level where you can see exactly waht is going on.
It's possible, referencing the motor vehicle contribution here...that like 16 year olds with a first car...some damage/hole has been parthed over mesh? A patch that is now failing and rusting out the mesh.

Barrier coating of several layers of epoxy is essential - when you have finally seen and sorted the ground down top layers. otherwise the same and worse will recur.
CS 27's of later years production like yours are very prone to osmotic blistering.
The earlier ones not so much.


You either have it or you don't seems to be the rule of thin=mb and it varies boat to boat.
You should join the CS West forum in Canada and put in the same question.
Wealth of talent there as well as here- but it's all CS specific.

As far as I know my CS and the others I know


All the above is good advice about investigating, stripping down, taking off the existing heavy paint layers and seeing what you have got

[captlloyd]

I agree with Ann, a ferro cement boat. They can be repaired.

[Captain Caliamari]

If you had a survey what did it reveal?
If not?

[Captain Caliamari]

It's a fibreglass boat

CS 27


The first hull was delivered in 1975, and production continued into 1983, with about 480 built. With a ballast/displacement ratio of .39, the deep keel version had a 2,400 lb. Cast-iron fin keel bolted to the hull. The optional shoal draft model had a longer bolt-on lead keel casting weighing 2,800 lbs., for a ballast/displacement ratio of .43. It is interesting to note that around 90 boats were fitted with these lead fins. The displacement/length ratio is about 200, which places the 27 in the moderate displacement category.
"After shopping around, I finally bought my boat for $27,000 in 1986." Stark chose his boat because it was epoxy-tarred below the waterline prior to launch to prevent osmotic blistering. This boat’s propensity to blister is well known on the second-hand market, and many 27s have had their gel coat stripped before undergoing an epoxy barrier coat treatment. I estimate that nearly 50 per cent of these boats have suffered from the boat "pox" at one time''.

[rhubstuff]

I'm trying to imagine why a fiberglass hull should look as terribly unfair as this one, and have cross-hatched rusting metal at the surface. Is this perhaps not a real CS 27, or was some truly awful repair attempted? It sure looks like a concrete boat to me.

[Scaramanga F25]

Having owned and maintained a CS 27 for some years I can affirm that the hull flexes at the iron keel to hull joint.
Accepting this I cleaned out all the hard crap of previous trial repairs by others.
Once the hard crap cleaned out I filled the V gap in the hull to deck joint with 5200. I let it cure then shaved it smooth.
Keel bolts could not be tightened even with a long pipe on a 1/2 "power bar.

[Steve Bean]

I vote for "some truly awful repair." I've seen a lot of boats on the hard in yards on U.S. East and West coasts over the last 40 years, and I don't recall any as rough looking as this. No boat, of any material, looks like this if properly done. It needs to be cleaned off and repaired.