O'day 37 iron keel

[marty1920]

I've had a problem with corrosion occurring at the junction of the cast iron keel and the hull. The entire cast iron keel was ground down to metal and epoxied at haulout 5 months ago, but now there is a line of rust seeping through the bottom paint along the upper edge of the iron keel. Does anyone have experience replacing the keel, detaching it to re -bed its union with the hull etc? Does anyone have a diagram showing the location of all the keel bolts?

 

[Olivier17182]

Ground down to metal???

On my 1979 O'day 37 (with a lead keel), the keel is not "attached" to the hull with bolts. It is an integral part of the hull. They form the hull with the keel and place the keel metal into the keel. The upper portion keel through which the metal is installed is then covered up with some fiberglass laminates. Around the hull/keel area, the thickness of the hull is approx 1".The advantage to this construction method is that you don't have to worry about any keelbolts. The main disatvantage is that when you ground the boat, the fiberglass hits first.I would do a bit more investigation about the way your boat was built, but chances are it was built like mine. If it was, you would have to regrind and refiberglass the area really heavily to restore the original layup to insure a strong connection.As to why you originaly saw a rust line: I have no idea. May be water slowly penetrated the hull - sort of like osmosis. May be you developed a stress crack that let water in?