I have debated on posting this info but finally decided if I could help one person out there avoid the disaster we had then I needed to share this info.
In the last 3 years we had almost completely refurbished our 1983 Hunter 20 sailboat. It was our first boat and neither of us had a clue about sailboats when we bought it, but how difficult could they be? Well lets just say we have gotten a real education. In the last three years we have removed all but one piece on the boat and resealed them all, repainted, new cushions, new sails, running rigging, numerous modifications to make the boat suit our needs better. Essentially we had a totally refurbished boat if not for one part. I keep referring to every piece but one for a reason.
So I asked Cindy to marry me one snowy New Years Eve at midnight standing on cross country skis in the middle of a blizzard in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. She said yes! That should prove how crazy both of us are. When it came time to pick a honeymoon location Cindy suggested sailing the North Channel. God bless her. So the last year has been spent researching, working on the boat, and adding things to it to make our week aboard as comfy as I could for Cindy. It has been in a slip for the past two years with no issues and we sailed her a lot so all was good, so I thought.
We have a story book wedding at sunset on the beach at Empire MI and I scored major points for pulling off a huge surprise for Cindy by arranging to have her sisters, kids, and the two couples we run around with show up at the wedding without her knowing anything about it. Those points scored would get used so much quicker than I ever thought possible.
We take off from Empire to go to the North Channel as high as kites we were so happy
We get to Spanish and step the mast and rig the boat splashing her in about 5 pm. We get about 5 miles away from the marina and I discover water in the keel locker. Oh crap, turn around and go back. Long story short, we got back to the marina right at dusk, got attacked by every mosquito in Ontario while we tried to get the tent top on, I had a complete and utter meltdown in the boat trying to kill the 1000 mosquitos that we trapped in the boat with us totally smoking all the points I got for the wedding surprise, spent the first three nights of our honeymoon in the boat on the trailer in the trailer parking lot, had to make not one but two trips to the boat lift at Almenara marina in Spanish, got woke up at 5 am to the sound of the bilge pump running with 2 inches of water in the floor of the boat, and in the end were not even close to the real cause of the leak. We did finally get to spend two nights out on the water but yours truly got to wake up every hour to mop up water that continued to leak in. Lesson learned, never ever take your boat on your honeymoon with you! If you want all the details of what all went wrong you can read about it in our blog at http://adventuresofthememorymakers.blogspot.com/
What I was able to pinpoint on the water before we pulled out was that the leak/leaks were coming in from up at that the top of the keel trunk. On our Hunter 20 the keel winch sits on top of the keel trunk in the cabin. There is a hole cut in the top of the keel trunk that the winch line goes down through. There is a "standpipe" inside of the winch box that extends down below the top of the keel trunk and 6 inches above it that holds the rollers and allows the waterline to actually rise above the top of the keel trunk if needed. I started noticing that the lower the bow was in the water or the bigger the waves were that we were crashing into the more water would come in. At times it would down right spray in between the winch box and the top of the keel trunk when we were falling off 3 and 4 foot waves trying to get from Fox Island to the Benjamins. Needless to say we did not make it there, opting to turn around and run with the wind instead. This is what the winch and keel trunk look like in the boat.
So after trailering the boat for 2000 miles we get home and get the boat off the trailer and remove the keel, for the third time in a week. If there is ever any doubt how strong 3M 4200 is let me just say that once I removed the four bolts holding the keel brackets to the boat the 400lb keel stayed firmly attached to the boat. I had to lower the jack I had under the keel and kick the keel several times to get it to break free from the boat.
With the keel removed I looked up in the keel trunk at the underside of the winch box and this is what I saw
The white stuff in the corners is a water activated epoxy we put on anything we thought might be the leak when we had it in the lift for the second time. We were close to the problem but no way we could have fixed it from below. The bigger issue I now know is where the winch box attaches to the trunk. The hole around the winch is larger than it needs to be for and aft and there is a hole drilled in the top of the trunk that is just open. I can really tell much so I have to get the winch box out.
Now I have to deal with the reason that we had removed all but one piece of hardware from the boat. The mast compression strut is welded to the top of the winch box. I never removed the winch box for two reasons, one, did not think I needed to, and second, I did not think I could get it out. Well I was right, it would not come out no matter what I tried as either the strut was welded to the box after the pieces were installed or it was installed prior to attaching the cabin top to the hull. It had to come out so it was time to get serious. I used a micrometer to measure the outside diameter of the compression strut then looked online till I found an aircraft structural aluminum tube that was just a few thousandths larger ID than the tube's OD. Once I had that tube in my hands I cut the compression strut about 6" above the winch box. Now I could remove both pieces from the boat.
This is what I discovered.
A mess would be the quick description of it. There were several serious issues going on here. Not sure where to start. There were multiple unused holes, easy fix. Whoever cut the hole for the winch box cut it too long fore and aft and the front edge on the left side of the hole in the pic is so think it is like a knife edge. Then to top it off whoever did it used one thin layer of fiberglass cloth and some sort of resin to seal the edges. The fiberglass was no longer attached to the edge of the hole. In short it was just a flipping mess.
I already felt horrible about how the honeymoon sail went to begin with but once I saw this I was almost sick at my stomach. Not that I could not fix it but that I did not fix it sooner. But how the heck was I to know what I could not see was going to shoot me in the foot? Time to wipe up the tears and get busy fixing this mess.
I started out by cleaning the area and removing what little sealant there was. Then I ground out what little fiberglass was stuck to the edges of the hole. The front edge of hole needed to be wider than a knifes edge so after determining how much wider I could make it I used thickened epoxy to build that lip back out and sealed all the edges of the hole. I filled all the unused holes and the mystery hole on the underside of the keel trunk.
Then there was the access hole. A genius PO at some point cut a 3x4 inch access hole into the port side of the keel trunk that allowed them to replace the keel pennant line with the boat on the trailer. It works but that hole is under the water line. 2 years ago when I removed the thin metal plate covering that hole I discovered they just cut a hole and did not seal the edges. Knowing we were going to be putting it on a slip that was not going to work so I sealed the edges. I used a piece of 1/4 plexiglass to cover the hole so I could at least see in to the trunk thinking that might be handy at some point. Once on the water I discovered that the water line was about half way up the window. I never felt good about this setup so I decided to go ahead and remove it and fix the keel trunk wall while I had everything apart. Here it is ground out and ready to repair
I got really lazy about taking pictures at this point. Probably because it was 95 plus degrees and 100% humidity outside everyday while I was working on this and I was just miserable in the boat. No body lives in Southern Indiana in the summer because they want to...
Anyway I did take this pic showing the hole after I rebuilt the front edge and filled all the holes.
I cored the access hole and used thickened epoxy from both inside and out then used two layers of cloth and multiple coats of epoxy inside and out to repair it. Lets just say it is real fun trying to work epoxy in a 2 1/2" wide keel trunk above your head in 100 degree heat.
With repairs made I applied a very liberal coating of 4200 around the opening and to the underside of the winch box then reinstalled the winch box. Sealer oozed out from all four side and down into the keel trunk around the opening so I feel much better about it being water tight now.
The name compression strut is one of the few names of parts of a sailboat that makes sense. The load from the standing rigging compresses the mast down onto the cabin top. Without the strut the top would probably collapse at some point unless the boat was designed to not have one. Our boat needs one as the top relaxed about a 1/2" once I removed it. I wound up having to use a small bottle jack and a piece of 2x4 beside the compression strut top mounting plate to jack the cabin top up enough to get the tube to line back up with the stub sticking up off the winch box. Once I had the two sections back in line with each other I was able to slide the structural aluminum tube I was using as a sleeve down over joint. It was literally a friction fit. If at some point 30 years down the road someone has to do this again they will be able to remove the winch box and reseal it without too much difficulty.
So now we can say we have removed and resealed every piece on the boat! Owning this boat has been a truly educational and humbling experience. It leaked horribly from day one after being assured by the previous owner it was a “dry” boat. We fought leak after leak till we thought we had them all taken care of only to be bit one more time by some previous owner’s ignorance. I am not a stupid man, I am a commercial pilot, a licensed aircraft mechanic, I build houses, make anything I need or want, but this boat has made me feel stupid time and time again.
I wanted our honeymoon to be a trip we would remember forever. While I am sure we will never forget this trip it will not for the reasons I had hoped for. Once we cleaned up all the blood spatter in the boat from the mosquito massacre we made the best of it and had a great time. God bless her, Cindy is just the most incredible little lady to ever walk on the earth. She took each and every set back in stride and was just happy to be away and with me, I have no clue why on the “with me” part. We met some really nice peeps and did get to see some really beautiful areas of the North Channel. We can’t say enough nice things about Russell and Jean at Almenara Marina in Spanish. They went way out of the way to help us and even put us up for the night while our boat hung in the lift. In the end no matter how much you prepare there will always be things pop up that are beyond your control.
I posted this hoping to help some other poor unsuspecting boat owner from going through something like what we did. If your boat is 30 plus years old like ours is and there is anything below the water line that can leak, chances are good that it probably will at some point. Do yourself, and your blood pressure, a favor and just reseal it now before I bites you when you least expect it!
Sam
In the last 3 years we had almost completely refurbished our 1983 Hunter 20 sailboat. It was our first boat and neither of us had a clue about sailboats when we bought it, but how difficult could they be? Well lets just say we have gotten a real education. In the last three years we have removed all but one piece on the boat and resealed them all, repainted, new cushions, new sails, running rigging, numerous modifications to make the boat suit our needs better. Essentially we had a totally refurbished boat if not for one part. I keep referring to every piece but one for a reason.
So I asked Cindy to marry me one snowy New Years Eve at midnight standing on cross country skis in the middle of a blizzard in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. She said yes! That should prove how crazy both of us are. When it came time to pick a honeymoon location Cindy suggested sailing the North Channel. God bless her. So the last year has been spent researching, working on the boat, and adding things to it to make our week aboard as comfy as I could for Cindy. It has been in a slip for the past two years with no issues and we sailed her a lot so all was good, so I thought.
We have a story book wedding at sunset on the beach at Empire MI and I scored major points for pulling off a huge surprise for Cindy by arranging to have her sisters, kids, and the two couples we run around with show up at the wedding without her knowing anything about it. Those points scored would get used so much quicker than I ever thought possible.
We take off from Empire to go to the North Channel as high as kites we were so happy
We get to Spanish and step the mast and rig the boat splashing her in about 5 pm. We get about 5 miles away from the marina and I discover water in the keel locker. Oh crap, turn around and go back. Long story short, we got back to the marina right at dusk, got attacked by every mosquito in Ontario while we tried to get the tent top on, I had a complete and utter meltdown in the boat trying to kill the 1000 mosquitos that we trapped in the boat with us totally smoking all the points I got for the wedding surprise, spent the first three nights of our honeymoon in the boat on the trailer in the trailer parking lot, had to make not one but two trips to the boat lift at Almenara marina in Spanish, got woke up at 5 am to the sound of the bilge pump running with 2 inches of water in the floor of the boat, and in the end were not even close to the real cause of the leak. We did finally get to spend two nights out on the water but yours truly got to wake up every hour to mop up water that continued to leak in. Lesson learned, never ever take your boat on your honeymoon with you! If you want all the details of what all went wrong you can read about it in our blog at http://adventuresofthememorymakers.blogspot.com/
What I was able to pinpoint on the water before we pulled out was that the leak/leaks were coming in from up at that the top of the keel trunk. On our Hunter 20 the keel winch sits on top of the keel trunk in the cabin. There is a hole cut in the top of the keel trunk that the winch line goes down through. There is a "standpipe" inside of the winch box that extends down below the top of the keel trunk and 6 inches above it that holds the rollers and allows the waterline to actually rise above the top of the keel trunk if needed. I started noticing that the lower the bow was in the water or the bigger the waves were that we were crashing into the more water would come in. At times it would down right spray in between the winch box and the top of the keel trunk when we were falling off 3 and 4 foot waves trying to get from Fox Island to the Benjamins. Needless to say we did not make it there, opting to turn around and run with the wind instead. This is what the winch and keel trunk look like in the boat.
So after trailering the boat for 2000 miles we get home and get the boat off the trailer and remove the keel, for the third time in a week. If there is ever any doubt how strong 3M 4200 is let me just say that once I removed the four bolts holding the keel brackets to the boat the 400lb keel stayed firmly attached to the boat. I had to lower the jack I had under the keel and kick the keel several times to get it to break free from the boat.
With the keel removed I looked up in the keel trunk at the underside of the winch box and this is what I saw
The white stuff in the corners is a water activated epoxy we put on anything we thought might be the leak when we had it in the lift for the second time. We were close to the problem but no way we could have fixed it from below. The bigger issue I now know is where the winch box attaches to the trunk. The hole around the winch is larger than it needs to be for and aft and there is a hole drilled in the top of the trunk that is just open. I can really tell much so I have to get the winch box out.
Now I have to deal with the reason that we had removed all but one piece of hardware from the boat. The mast compression strut is welded to the top of the winch box. I never removed the winch box for two reasons, one, did not think I needed to, and second, I did not think I could get it out. Well I was right, it would not come out no matter what I tried as either the strut was welded to the box after the pieces were installed or it was installed prior to attaching the cabin top to the hull. It had to come out so it was time to get serious. I used a micrometer to measure the outside diameter of the compression strut then looked online till I found an aircraft structural aluminum tube that was just a few thousandths larger ID than the tube's OD. Once I had that tube in my hands I cut the compression strut about 6" above the winch box. Now I could remove both pieces from the boat.
This is what I discovered.
A mess would be the quick description of it. There were several serious issues going on here. Not sure where to start. There were multiple unused holes, easy fix. Whoever cut the hole for the winch box cut it too long fore and aft and the front edge on the left side of the hole in the pic is so think it is like a knife edge. Then to top it off whoever did it used one thin layer of fiberglass cloth and some sort of resin to seal the edges. The fiberglass was no longer attached to the edge of the hole. In short it was just a flipping mess.
I already felt horrible about how the honeymoon sail went to begin with but once I saw this I was almost sick at my stomach. Not that I could not fix it but that I did not fix it sooner. But how the heck was I to know what I could not see was going to shoot me in the foot? Time to wipe up the tears and get busy fixing this mess.
I started out by cleaning the area and removing what little sealant there was. Then I ground out what little fiberglass was stuck to the edges of the hole. The front edge of hole needed to be wider than a knifes edge so after determining how much wider I could make it I used thickened epoxy to build that lip back out and sealed all the edges of the hole. I filled all the unused holes and the mystery hole on the underside of the keel trunk.
Then there was the access hole. A genius PO at some point cut a 3x4 inch access hole into the port side of the keel trunk that allowed them to replace the keel pennant line with the boat on the trailer. It works but that hole is under the water line. 2 years ago when I removed the thin metal plate covering that hole I discovered they just cut a hole and did not seal the edges. Knowing we were going to be putting it on a slip that was not going to work so I sealed the edges. I used a piece of 1/4 plexiglass to cover the hole so I could at least see in to the trunk thinking that might be handy at some point. Once on the water I discovered that the water line was about half way up the window. I never felt good about this setup so I decided to go ahead and remove it and fix the keel trunk wall while I had everything apart. Here it is ground out and ready to repair
I got really lazy about taking pictures at this point. Probably because it was 95 plus degrees and 100% humidity outside everyday while I was working on this and I was just miserable in the boat. No body lives in Southern Indiana in the summer because they want to...
Anyway I did take this pic showing the hole after I rebuilt the front edge and filled all the holes.
I cored the access hole and used thickened epoxy from both inside and out then used two layers of cloth and multiple coats of epoxy inside and out to repair it. Lets just say it is real fun trying to work epoxy in a 2 1/2" wide keel trunk above your head in 100 degree heat.
With repairs made I applied a very liberal coating of 4200 around the opening and to the underside of the winch box then reinstalled the winch box. Sealer oozed out from all four side and down into the keel trunk around the opening so I feel much better about it being water tight now.
The name compression strut is one of the few names of parts of a sailboat that makes sense. The load from the standing rigging compresses the mast down onto the cabin top. Without the strut the top would probably collapse at some point unless the boat was designed to not have one. Our boat needs one as the top relaxed about a 1/2" once I removed it. I wound up having to use a small bottle jack and a piece of 2x4 beside the compression strut top mounting plate to jack the cabin top up enough to get the tube to line back up with the stub sticking up off the winch box. Once I had the two sections back in line with each other I was able to slide the structural aluminum tube I was using as a sleeve down over joint. It was literally a friction fit. If at some point 30 years down the road someone has to do this again they will be able to remove the winch box and reseal it without too much difficulty.
So now we can say we have removed and resealed every piece on the boat! Owning this boat has been a truly educational and humbling experience. It leaked horribly from day one after being assured by the previous owner it was a “dry” boat. We fought leak after leak till we thought we had them all taken care of only to be bit one more time by some previous owner’s ignorance. I am not a stupid man, I am a commercial pilot, a licensed aircraft mechanic, I build houses, make anything I need or want, but this boat has made me feel stupid time and time again.
I wanted our honeymoon to be a trip we would remember forever. While I am sure we will never forget this trip it will not for the reasons I had hoped for. Once we cleaned up all the blood spatter in the boat from the mosquito massacre we made the best of it and had a great time. God bless her, Cindy is just the most incredible little lady to ever walk on the earth. She took each and every set back in stride and was just happy to be away and with me, I have no clue why on the “with me” part. We met some really nice peeps and did get to see some really beautiful areas of the North Channel. We can’t say enough nice things about Russell and Jean at Almenara Marina in Spanish. They went way out of the way to help us and even put us up for the night while our boat hung in the lift. In the end no matter how much you prepare there will always be things pop up that are beyond your control.
I posted this hoping to help some other poor unsuspecting boat owner from going through something like what we did. If your boat is 30 plus years old like ours is and there is anything below the water line that can leak, chances are good that it probably will at some point. Do yourself, and your blood pressure, a favor and just reseal it now before I bites you when you least expect it!
Sam
