85 Cat 27 - aft keel leak

[Anjin]

After the last two haul outs I have experienced leakage into the bilge from the far aft end of the bilge. It’s difficult to identify, face forward, lower head into bilge and look aft.
The first time I had it re-hauled and sure enough there was damage to keel at aft end, up close to hull at the curve (hull/keel connection?) I blamed sloppy crane work and they fiberglassed it and no problem for 3+ years. This year hauled , looked OK, back in water, leakage in same place again. Getting ready to pull and inspect.
Have owned boat since new, 33 years. This is a puzzle, is this a week spot in hull and over the years haul outs have weakened the area? Any comments, experiences welcomed.

Anjin
85 Cat 27
STD Rig, Inboard

 

[jssailem]

Welcome to the Forum @Anjin . You live near som nice water. Congrats on 33 years of boat ownership.
Sounds like you may have reinjured the same area. That would be an obvious place to look.

Any chance that the water could be coming in from a stuffing box? I know when My boat was on the hard for 60 days, the box flax dried out and when returned to the water was a site of water intrusion. Took about 2 hours for the flax to get saturated (swell up) and the dripping stopped.

 

[Anjin]

No, as you might guess after so long I know where to look. Just dried out the bilge and within minutes water is seeping in from the aft section of the bilge where it tapers to a rough point. It is so narrow and hard to reach it is not finished very well. Just looks dark and damp. Wondering if I should cut an inspection plate in the floor so I could fiberglass and finish that section, it would be right below the last ladder step. Hopefully I can get hauled on Wednesday to look at Hull/keel area, pretty sure I know what I’ll see. By the way keel bolts are SS and look to be no change and I have a shoal draft keel.
Never heard of packing material drying out, but I learn something new about this boat every week for last 30+ years. Thanks for your interest , I’ll also call Catalina next week.
Fair Winds, Anjin

 

[jssailem]

Fair winds and Happy New Year.
Will be interested in hearing what you discover.

 

[LeslieTroyer]

borescopes are very inexpensive now that they are using smart phones to display the images -- you should find a waterproof 10' fiber optic unit for $40 or less - that way you can get into those spaces that were meant to be checked out by anemic 5 year olds.

 

[stevec22206]

Inboard or outboard? I have the inboard and recently discovered the bronze intake thru hull seal had started to fail. What had always been a small leak in the past began to seep larger amounts of water after I reoriented the thru hull valve. Coincidently, the travel lift strap seemed to lay right over the thru hull and may have contributed to