Keel Bolts
Three years ago I purchased a ’78 Catalina 30, the survey turned up badly rusted keel bolts, along with quite a few other items. In these years the installed keel bolts were mild steel and serious keel bolt deterioration was not uncommon. In this case the previous owner had attempted to stop the corrosion by coating the bolts with some type of epoxy, which ultimately didn’t work, but masked the problem to a casual quick look. I was quite surprised when I began to peel the epoxy coating away and found not much more than rust paste inside the epoxy shell. After much discussion it was decided by the seller to replace the entire keel, although there were several other options available, that’s what was done. Interesting to note, although all of the bolts and studs had completely succumbed to corrosion the keel proved almost impossible to remove, the boat yard finely removed it with a sawzall requiring several blades. It was evident that the keel wasn’t going anywhere due to the bonding epoxy holding the keel to the hull-even though all the bolts were missing. The sellers on their nickel replaced the keel; the new bolts are stainless steel and still look perfect. The keel was rebonded to the hull with Moss System epoxy, so far all is going well. Yes, before buying take a good look in the bilge – and while owning keep it dry.
