inside my swing keel

[owner23.5]

last min inspection before launching this weekend and I have a problem.
I cut my bunk away near the tip of the swing keel as I noticed a crack , when I removed the piece of bunkboard I saw what appears to be a hole wear the prvious owner must have struck something with the keel down as Ive never had it down in shallow waters , further inspection showed me that the hole is the size of a quarter right directly where the keel would make first contact with any forign object on the river bottom.
I can stick my pinky finger in this hole and feel nothing in there "bout 3" deep" what should I fill this void with prior to glassing it closed ?this sucks as you can barely get undert the trailer let alone do repairs . any ideas?

 

[sesmith]

Yes you should fix it. You should also check and repair the leading edge of it, if that's cracked too. Any water that gets into it from damage or a hole is likely to have settled to the bottom (leading edge) and cracked it over the winter. I had to fix mine this spring when I bottom painted it. It's easy to fix once you have access.

The way I do it on my boat, is to borrow a couple of flat (power boat) stands. You'll need the ones that are 24 or 25" at their lowest setting. Crank the nose of the trailer all the way down as low as it will go. Put the stands under the stern of the boat. Then raise the nose of the trailer up (you may need to use a jack, as well as the trailer jack, to do this as the trailer jack may bend if you don't help it a little with a jack). This gets the stern of the boat on the stands and off the trailer bunks. secure the nose of the trailer on some sort of block to support the weight. You can then carefully jack the bow of the boat off of the front of the trailer. I use an air jack with a board on top to protect the boat and support the jack on a timber on the trailer. This gets the bow of the boat off the bunks. I then block the boat bow on the trailer so I can take the weight off the jack. I then remove both bunks from the trailer and one of the wood supports for the swing keel from the trailer. This gives access to the whole bottom for painting and lets you slide the swing keel sideways and off the wood support to give you a little more access to it for repairs and painting.

I can post pics if you want later tonite. Let me know.

Scott

 

[owner23.5]

so much for a day off.thanks for the input I went down to hardware staore and bought 2 fiberglass kits with the clothe. Then made a mess!!! I cut 2"x2" patches of clothe and mixed it in with the glas then crawled under and pushed it up in the hole as far as it would go. it took quite a bit to fill the void.as I didnt bring rubber gloves "should have been first tool" the mixture was coming back out so I took one for the team and grab the ball of muck with my fingers and shoved it all back into the hole, my hands were COVERED in this mess and took about a half hour of wife hosing me down and then nail polish remover to get my hands clean. think the repair should work . waiting till dry and then will try and mix smaller patches and cover the hole completely. should get me through the summer and can see next winter removing it and making better repairs.lastly I thought it would have been nice to see hunter hybond some 1/4 rubber plates down there to sacrifice to the rock gods rather then the bare fiberglass taking all the beating.

 

[isaksp00]

Look into buying some filler, like the West System fairing fillers.