O'Day 302 Loses Keel - Check Yours!!

Steve L22188 · Oct 15, 2010

Follow up: My 302 Keel Seems Fine

A follow up on what I found on my O'Day 302 after some of the recent reports of these boats having problems with their keels...

I had the boat pulled yesterday and can report that the keel looks fine:

[*]The joint between the keel and hull is very, very tight.

[*]I'm getting NO water infiltration from the outside. The bilge has been dry as a bone all summer.

[*]While the boat was on the trailer and resting on rails (not on the keel) I shook the keel very hard -- the entire boat shook with it. I could detect no movement in the keel where it met the hull.

[*]I opened the bilge and carefully checked the keel bolts and the backing plates as another person shook the keel very hard -- no movement whatsoever.

[*]The keel sump depth seems to be very robust -- not as skinny as reported on one of those that failed. This is nice and deep and there's absolutely no signs of any stress at all.

If any of you can suggest some other kind of check, I'd love to hear about it. Given what I've found, I'm very, very reluctant to drop the keel -- I think that could end up causing more problems in the long run. (I do not have a bunch of geniuses among the marina service crew!)

Just thought I'd give you a follow up on what I found. Any thoughts or suggestions from the good people on this forum will be appreciated.

Chilidog · Oct 15, 2010

Re: Follow up: My 302 Keel Seems Fine

Could you please reduce you font size to 10 or 11, thanks

Steve Dion · Oct 15, 2010

Steve:

If you drill a hole through the bottom of the stub you can get an estimate of the actual thickness of the stub. While you may not see any stress cracks at this point, it would give you the piece of mind to know that you actually have an inch or so of glass in that area.

Once you know what is going on, you can easily fill the hole with some epoxy or resin to plug up the hole.

This would prevent you from dropping the keel, which is probably not very inexpensive.

bobkay · Nov 15, 2010

My O'Day 302 lost her keel last spring. She sank in 7 minutes. There were no signs of impending failure.

Tom J · Nov 21, 2013

Years ago, I had a keel bolt pull through on my O'Day 23. We had a leak at the forward edge of the keel stub. Later, when I dropped the keel, I was flabbergasted to find the thickness of the laminate at the broken area was less then 1/4", as noted in other posts here. This bolt was located at the foremost part of the keel stub, over the heaviest part of the keel, with the other 8 bolts spread out over the aftermost, lighter part of the keel. What also seemed odd was that the keel bolt holes were counter sunk about 7/8", leaving only about 1/4" of the hull laminate to hold the keel in place. Why didn't O'Day just drill through the 1" or so of resin/glass layer at the top of the keel stub? So, anyway, that's what I did. I filled all the bolt holes with thickened epoxy, after relaminating the damaged areas, and drilled new bolt holes in the same places as the old ones.
I should also note that it took a long time to mate the keel into the keel stub. I had to laminate several layers of glass to the foreword part of the stub to get that area flat. I also had to fair the top of the keel quite a bit to get it to match the keel stub. Don't know if O'Day never bothered to match the keel/stub joint, or if the age of the boat had something to do with the mismatch (the boat was 22 years old at the time).

jibes138 · Nov 27, 2013

Maine Sail,
Has anyone investigated this with C. Raymond Hunt Associates to see if this was a design flaw or a manufacturing defect? Hunt may not be willing to respond in case there is litigation involved, but it seems if it is a design problem it would be extremely irresponsible not to issue a service bulletin and/or recall notice. In case of a manufacturing defect with the company long defunct not much can be done except individual owners inspecting and correcting.

Documentation and state registration records should be able to identify most of them. Maybe the Coast Guard should take action given the risk of loss of life and cost of search and rescue potential.

From my records the 302 was first built in 1988 and the 322 in 1986. The company changed hands from Bangor Punta, to Lear Sigler, to Pearson in that time frame. Last I knew some company in Japan was building one of the O'Day models.
Here's the link to boat model by year, I can't vouch for the accuracy of this, it is just from a search on the net.
http://sailboatdata.com/view_builder.asp?Builder_ID=51

On my 35 the keel bolts have plenty of length so it seems like a little release agent, a thin plastic sleeve over the bolts and you could layup an inch of glass in the bilge with a generous overlap up the bilge turn thus reinforcing it without dropping the keel.

Does it make sense to send your info to BOAT U.S. as they access in to Washington and may be able to have some action taken throughout the industry to help protect owners of these vessels. Kind of like grounding an airplane or recalling a car for safety defects, some system should exist in the boat industry for dealing with life safety issues. Any other thoughts? I will send a link to this thread to BOAT U.S. and see if they respond.

jibes138 · Nov 27, 2013

Maine Sail,
I sent a note to BOAT U.S. consumer protection and copied you on it also with a link to this thread. Check your compass gmail account.
Dave

Jackdaw · Nov 27, 2013

Maine,

Good job as usual looking into this. I have several friends with oday's that I have shared this with. Sadly, I'm think the current owners on are their own.

These boats are 30 years old.
90% are not owned by their original owners.
Oday is long gone and out of business. Anyone owning that name today has a hold harmless clause to shield them from old product liability.

Talking to Hunt is interesting, but in my experience, designers hand a set of drawing to the boatyard, and they they modify the boat as they see fit, and create their own production and layup schedule for them.

The BoatUS CPB is a mediation program between original owners and manufactures, typically for products less than 5 years old. They have no play in a situation with an defunct builder.

jibes138 · Nov 27, 2013

I'm sure owners are on the hook for the cost but organizations like the NTSB deal all the time with issues like old airplanes or trains or cars that need service bulletins or recall notices. The 302/322 series only had at most 4 years of production so most likely less than 1000 boats but not everyone is on this forum and the owners deserve a heads up if their lives are at risk. Only the government has ownership records through registrations/documentations, and tax records to be able to identify them. Hopefully BOAT U.S. will forward to the right agency to assist if the CPB isn't the right one.

Hunt's reputation could be at stake and thickness of the keel stub based on stress calculations should still be part of the documentation for the design. At the very least it should be ruled out as an issue and the blame placed squarely on the build process. Any designer would use a safety factor, especially given the variables in FRP laminates such as resin rich or resin starved, weave orientation and so forth. One of Maine Sails pictures almost looks resin starved but hard to tell when FRP is ripped apart like that. Another factor could be loose keel bolts allowing relative motion and concentrating stress. I guess I should at least pull off a couple nuts on mine and see if I can determine the stub thickness without dropping the keel. I'd hate to be another Bounty! I've been up to 200 miles offshore and the 34 won the Marion to Bermuda race one year so these boats can be in a situation where rescue could be a long time coming.

Jackdaw · Nov 27, 2013

Maine Sail said:
This is why I mention it here.

Keep in mind that I/we have no idea how many boats this may affect or if these were just Monday or Friday boats. In looking at the entire 322 I would certainly say the entire layup of that vessel was EXTREMELY light compared to other boats I have physically worked on in that size range...

I bring this up because we KNOW Catalina laminated wood into the stubs and it can rot out. Many Catalina owners have addressed this. Still, despite this DUMB move on Catalina's part, I know of not a single Catalina to have lost a keel.

Even if you take away the wood the glass in a Catalina 30 keel stub is thicker than this 'solid glass" O'day 322 keel stub... Both of the boats I have pictures of failed in a near identical manner. Both of these boats had very, very thin keel stubs in my experience. If they were all built like this I think the fatigue/time envelope may be closing in on a number of them. That is pretty scary and why I bring it to the attention of members of this forum.....

I totally agree with you. The pictures are scary. Every owner should have it looked into ASAP. The bummer is that every one will go through the same process, and bear all of the cost. It would nice if they could find a way to band together and hire an NA ONCE to do the investigation and the remediation/design work, but that seems impractical.

jibes138 · Nov 27, 2013

I sent a note to C. Raymond Hunt asking them to respond with the design thickness specs of the keel stub so we can inspect our boats and know what it should be. I'll let you know if they respond. Maine Sail, I copied you on the note to Hunt.

Pat · Nov 27, 2013

These same pictures have been on the internet and forums from a Texas venue...I think
the actual incident happened in NE Kansas near Lake Perry.