After sitting on the hard for a few months, we’ve noticed a leaking bulge in the keel. Has anyone else experienced this? A fix?
Keel bulge
- Thread starter c&cgal
- Start date
What year is your boat? Can you take some photos from further away? what kind of keel? The C & C 44's had a lot of keel options IIRC - might help for us to know what your boat has.
At first blush, this does not look alarming to me.
I would like to know what kind of ballast the boat has, lead, steel, concrete, whatever it may be. I'd also like to know if the keel is a bolt on with a fiberglass covering - or whatever construction details are known.
dj
At first blush, this does not look alarming to me.
I would like to know what kind of ballast the boat has, lead, steel, concrete, whatever it may be. I'd also like to know if the keel is a bolt on with a fiberglass covering - or whatever construction details are known.
dj
Could be a couple of causes, the worst case would involve the keel bolts and leaks.
More likely is debris from the original casting that was encased in the keel. Lead keels are sand casted and sand can flake off the mold and get buried inside the keel. If it is close to the surface water might leak in and cause the lead to bubble and eventually leak.
This happened on my Sabre. After sounding with a hammer, I cut ope a small section which was filled with casting sand. Here's a photo of the problem part way through the repair. I removed the outer skin, cleaned out all the sand and filled and faired the area with epoxy.
More likely is debris from the original casting that was encased in the keel. Lead keels are sand casted and sand can flake off the mold and get buried inside the keel. If it is close to the surface water might leak in and cause the lead to bubble and eventually leak.
This happened on my Sabre. After sounding with a hammer, I cut ope a small section which was filled with casting sand. Here's a photo of the problem part way through the repair. I removed the outer skin, cleaned out all the sand and filled and faired the area with epoxy.
@dlochner Your keel is bolt on, no? I'm guessing the C&C 44 is also. I just realized that he C&C is listed as having lead ballast, as does your Sabre. That's a whole lot better, IMHO.
It looks like the water is coming out fairly close to the bottom of the keel on the C&C - that's good. The C&C has a cored hull, no? At least this is far away from that.
So far it looks like a pretty simple: open, clean, dry, reseal...
dj
It looks like the water is coming out fairly close to the bottom of the keel on the C&C - that's good. The C&C has a cored hull, no? At least this is far away from that.
So far it looks like a pretty simple: open, clean, dry, reseal...
dj
As Dave mentioned above, it may be due to some 'inclusion' in the lead that happened during casting. My previous boat, a Hunter 37 Cutter, had a couple of places where rust was leaching out. I suspect Hunter recycled some lead wheel weights that still had the steel clips attached... Anyway, a mini grinder with a coarse sanding disc and some epoxy putty soon put things right. Nice boat BTW.