Catalina keel bolt help asap please .

[Woodyapex]

Catalina 30 keel bolt urgent help please .
I've read nearly everything I can find on this subject but really could do with a direct answer please .
I've just come to remove the nuts on my keel bolts to put big washers on and make sure they are sound . The earthed one nearest bow was my first chose as its nut was in way better condition to the others . To my suppress it started to come off easily . But then I realised it was not attached . !
Now I can get a haul out immediately and can probably get the keel off . But obviously I can't get this bolt out . So what do I do ?
Tap the keel ? By the way it's 1975 and I'm not sure if it's lead or cast ?
Many thanks Woody

 

[MitchM]

check the fore area of the keel to see if you can see a separation between keel and hull (the notorious 'catalina smile.') this area may be masked by bottom paint so remove some of the paint to see if you can see a separation there which is caused by 1 ormolu of the keel bolts' loosening. some of the older bolts may be corroding inside the keel, causing the keel to loosen. if so you are looking at a haul out , dropping of keel and replacement of the bolts. if only one bolt is bad you could try a temporary fix of epoxying it over and drilling out for installation of a new better quality keel bolt . i'd be surprised if this easy solution would work.fix things properly as losing your keel at sea could be fatal.

 

[Woodyapex]

Thanks Mitch .
I checked the fore keel and there is a line but no big smile .
Let's say best case scnario that this one bolt has perished due to it being the earthed one .
I can get at least 3" of threads into the keel ( I think and I'm not sure how thick the hull is above the keel , do you know.? )
It's not clear to me how these bolts are fixed . ? Do they go all the way through the keel ? Are they cast into the keel with a 90 deg angle on?
One thing I've noticed is this talk of plywood sandwiched in the hull . When I tap it with a hammer it's solid but not just solid it sounds nearly like concrete I'm hitting as if it's already had the wood took out . ?
If it had a bad smile too Mitch without that bolt in surely with out that bolt in water would be flooding in ?

 

[Jack - La Paz Mx]

Contact Catalina. They have a fix for this and a sheet of instructions. Catalina sells long (about 12 inches) stainless lag bolts that you can screw into the keel after drilling a pilot hole. Contact Catalina with your hull number and they can give you specific instructions for your boat. I broke one near the engine (1983) and Catalina did not feel it was a problem if other bolts were intact. I did order the lag bolts, but have not installed yet. Nice thing about Catalina is that they are still in business and provide excellent support for their product.

 

[Woodyapex]

Jack have you got a photo of the uninstalled lag bolts please ?

 

[Jack - La Paz Mx]

Sorry, I am in California, boat is in La Paz, Mexico. The lag bolts are in the boat are awaiting my return December. They are simply long lag bolts (coarse thread) that are stainless steel. They came with a data sheet on their installation. Do call Catalina in CA and request a data sheet. There is no need to drop the keel, or even pull the boat out of the water. For my situation, Catalina suggested "sistering" other lag bolts that are still intact. Tapping on the bolts will give you an idea on their status by the sound (kinda subjective though). Here is Catalina Direct's version of the lag bolts
http://www.catalinadirect.com/index.cfm/product/2463/bolt-retrofit-kit-for-lead-keel.cfm
In spite of my not replacing the stern keel bolt, I have not had any separation nor "catalina Smile". I guess a good test would be to ground the boat in shallow water, but I'm not going to do that.

 

[Woodyapex]

Jack good job I got your message as I was just about to run it aground to text it .
But genuinely I'm going to do that repair . I read that info about item . Saying don't do it and sail to Bahamas . Guess where I plan to sail at Christmas ! Yes Bahamas ! So I'm going to do a slightly beefed up version of it with larger bolts / screws as long as it does not turn out to be a cast iron keel .
Thanks for the advise and please give any more input you might have . Thanks .

 

[Elysium_Van_Isl]

Hi,
The keel will be lead from that vintage of boat.
I had similar problem as Jack with my aft bolt. The one right under the engine that is IMPOSSIBLE to torque, or even see, without lifting the engine. Bad planning on that one Catalina!!! Anyway, mine is degraded from anaerobic action on the steel. The last layer of fiberglass resin seemed to have been poured into the bilge AFTER the bolts were laid so there was about half of each bolt buried in resin. When I cleaned that all up the only one with major pitting was the aft one.
I had a bit of a smile on my hull-keel joint, but it wasn't from the bolts - always make sure the boat yard staff double block the keel when you go on the hard. If you don't, and the blocks are placed either toward the bow or the stern (outside of dead centre), you will get uneven pressure and slight flexing which will cause the joint to crack.

 

[Elysium_Van_Isl]

I also wanted to mention - if you do still have the plywood bilge core (and it's in good shape) you'll want to be careful to keep it that way. Putting in the aftermarket lag bolts will open up a way for water to seep down and saturate the wood. Water was getting into mine from a couple of screw holes which used to hold the bilge pump down. I drilled out large holes to expose the wood and let it dry as much as possible, then epoxy filled the holes and re-gelcoated the bilge. Because I couldn't completely dry the wood, and was now essentially sealing in moisture, I added the stainless bars that you see to give it some extra strength and to buy me a few more years before needing to cut the wood completely out.

 

[Woodyapex]

A quick update the bow keel bolt is in place but I reckon I may have stripped the threads , but so I could get a socket ( I wish ) on the rest I cut the rusty bolts I cut off the top 12 inch .
I say I wish as you'll see in the pictures the nuts were so rotten 2 were not intact 360 degrees and most the others had to be chiselled off . But the keel bolts were as sound as a pound ( English term ) so I put some high grade stainless steel nut back on . So I've 6 of the 8 with great holding strength . The bottom of the bilge and if there is any ply . It sounds as hard as concrete by the way when hit with a hammer . Thanks for the advise .

 

[Stu Jackson]

Glad it worked for you. Had you asked first, however, we could have told you that what is required is what's called a deep well socket, to remove those nuts on the long keel bolts. Most all of us with Catalinas have that issue.

Glad to hear they're now solid and back in place.

 

[Woodyapex]

Ha ha deep socket and pockets lol
I could not see the point in having 3/4 of rusty knackered bolt preventing me from getting to them . Although as you can see from my hand the wrong tool and determination took its toll !
Floor and worktop looks well though

 

[georgedubose]

Hello Catalina Owners,

I have a 1973 Pearson 36 that has a "smile" between the lead and the keel stub. Resin was poured into the bilge, filling the holes around the bronze keel bolts and leaking down into the joint between the lead and the fiberglass of the stub.

How do Catalina owners fill and seal this "smile". I want something that seals water out, has some flex and is paintable.

So how do you guys do it? Or is this TOP SECRET?

 

[Woodyapex]

Hi George
I'm still no expert and actually never had the smile . But from what I can see the aim is to actually get rid of the smile if you have one . I presume your on dry at the minute ? Just clean the two parts . The pour your resin then lower the boat so that there is 1/2 the boats weight on the keel . That may close the smile . Then you need to do the appropriate work inside .
But as I say I'm no expert and I've just replaced my nuts .

 

[RoyS]

Often the smile crack has been filled with a sealant. When you put bottom paint over that it just falls off and the smile reappears. If the keel is stable (not moving) you can apply one layer of fiberglass cloth and epoxy, covering the sealed crack. Apply bottom paint and if the keel is in fact stable you will not see the smile again.

 

[Elysium_Van_Isl]

I think Roy is getting to the heart of it - your keel has to be stable before you do anything. George - did you pour that resin around the keel bolts or was it an older repair? Seems a little scary to me that there would be enough of a gap around the bolts for epoxy to run down and out the joint.
My boat had the crack and I successfully repaired it using heavy biaxial cloth and West System G-Flex epoxy.
I'm attaching a document I have squirreled away from internet searches. It is not mine, and hopefully they don't mind sharing it here....It shows a full keel-drop repair. I'm sorry that the formatting is all messed up, it was just a quick copy/paste from the web...but I think you should be able to get the gist. I also can't say if this is the BEST way to fix the joint when dropping a keel. It is simply information that's out there so to speak....

 

[Elysium_Van_Isl]

My own repair job:

 

[rbmcintire]

Hello Catalina Owners,

I have a 1973 Pearson 36 that has a "smile" between the lead and the keel stub. Resin was poured into the bilge, filling the holes around the bronze keel bolts and leaking down into the joint between the lead and the fiberglass of the stub.

How do Catalina owners fill and seal this "smile". I want something that seals water out, has some flex and is paintable.

So how do you guys do it? Or is this TOP SECRET?

I did a keel repair back in 2010 that has not yielded any more smiles in our hull, but gives me one at every haulout. There's a Belly of the Beast album in my profile page that has some of the pictures. We had water seeping in around some of the keel bolts so I did a major repair, but did not remove the keel. The bolts were still shiny/full thread metal. I removed the ply and replaced it with G-10, in addition to following Catalina's repair specifications for alternating fiberglass mat and roving.

What I used on the Smile repair was a thin diamond wheel grinder to open it up and mixed "Milled" glass with West System G-Flex. That's the most structurally competent filler, combined with the best flexible epoxy. Load up multiple syringes and squirt the mix in there. Practice with a few batches on cardboard to achieve the thickness and flow that you like the looks of. Don't cheap out on buying enough materials. Note: raw lead will oxidize immediately. Prep a batch of clean epoxy without filler, then sand to raw metal. Brush on the neat epoxy ASAP to immediately protect the raw lead from the air. Then you're ready for the syringes. Once the smile gap is filled, you go to the 6" wide, Heavy Weight, Biaxial cloth that Elysium used. That's really the best. Roll on some neat epoxy, lay on the cloth and wet it out. Squeegee air out with a plastic scraper. Last step: Mix a batch of epoxy thickened with high density filler and put it in a *plastic drywall mud pan*. Use a plastic drywall knife about 8" wide and spread it out nice and smooth like drywall mud. No cloth fibers should be sticking out after this.

 

[Elysium_Van_Isl]

Thanks for filling in the deets RB. I was really rushed last week in my reply and I hate doing that....
Great answer and a lovely repair job. You nailed it.

 

[njlarry]

Woody is the wire shown in the first picture a bonding wire? Is this standard practice and why did not the zincs and bronze parts corrode first? Glad you are on top of it.
Rb your repair was very well done. If the original plywood was used as a filler, is G 10 overkill? Would rigid foam work if the areas under the washers was filled with epoxy to take the compression?