Opinion on Keel Crack

Berk

.
Jul 10, 2020
2
O'day 322 Montreal
Hi,
I would appreciate it if you can share your opinion on this keel of 302. I can't visit the boat at the moment. The owner says the previous owner installed a steel plate under the bolts. He says there is no play in the keel, and he had no issue with the keel during his 6-8 year of his ownership.
Do you think it has to be dropped, or a grind-&-fill job would do the trick? I know it is almost impossible to judge something by looking at two pictures. I'd value your opinion regardless.
Cheers

Berk
 

Attachments

  • Like
Likes: GIUSEPPE
Oct 22, 2014
20,995
CAL 35 Cruiser #21 moored EVERETT WA
Hi Berk welcome to your first post on the forum.

do not know about a 302? The image looks like the crack you speak of appears to be at the line where the fairing compound stops.

You would really need to examine the boat. To assure the keel bolts are snug.
 

Joe

.
Jun 1, 2004
7,999
Catalina 27 Mission Bay, San Diego
As long as the keel boats are well seated it's an easy fix. Here's an suggested fix of a common keel to hull problem with some Catalinas... You could adapt your issue with this method, filling in any gaps in the joint with the suggestion filler and finishing according to the example.
 
  • Like
Likes: RoyS
May 17, 2004
5,031
Beneteau Oceanis 37 Havre de Grace
Given some of the history of the 302 and 322 series (search the archives) I think it would be best to drop the keel and inspect the layup. If a large backing plate was added under the nuts that may help, but if the layup is thin then the backing plate might not have enough to hold onto.
 

dmax

.
Jul 29, 2018
971
O'Day 35 Buzzards Bay
I had a 1988 302 whose keel broke off from a soft grounding - the design called for 6 layers of glass in the stub but only 2 were used. Earlier models were done correctly. The S.S. plate will help but in my opinion is not sufficient. You want to establish how thick layup is in the stub - it should be about 3/4". Mine was about 1/4". Check out this thread, acarter did a nice job of beefing up the stub even though he does not have one of the thin ones.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Likes: sreidvt
Oct 29, 2017
88
ODay 302 Kenosha WI
I bought my 302 about 4 years ago not knowing much about boats. I Was not there when the boat was put in the water but on the hard the Oday 302 Keel had perfect vc paint job and looked great. Sailing on Lake Michigan it was not long before I was pulling the boat out. Had a crack around the keel. Contacted the previous owner and he said it has been there for past 10 years and he just caulk it. After doing the same as you are I ended up taking the mast down on the hard, building some cribbing under the hull and with 2 jacks lifting the hull off the keel about 2-3 inches. Cleaned out the old adhesives, reapplied 5200, and re torqued the bolts (275lb). The adhesive was pretty shot so the hull lifted off easily. My Oday also has the stainless washers for keel bolts. You do need to take the mast off to get to the keel bolts, one is under the mast step.
 

Attachments

Oct 20, 2014
135
O'Day 23-1 Lake Champlain, Vermont
+1 on the suggestions to carefully check the FG thickness above the keel. If it is too thin I would lay up additional FG layers to bring that area of the hull up to the needed thickness.
 
Jan 7, 2011
4,727
Oday 322 East Chicago, IN
Hi,
I would appreciate it if you can share your opinion on this keel of 302. I can't visit the boat at the moment. The owner says the previous owner installed a steel plate under the bolts. He says there is no play in the keel, and he had no issue with the keel during his 6-8 year of his ownership.
Do you think it has to be dropped, or a grind-&-fill job would do the trick? I know it is almost impossible to judge something by looking at two pictures. I'd value your opinion regardless.
Cheers

Berk
That keel joint does not look bad to me.

i Would check the bolt torque and inspect the inside of the bilge, but that joint does not look bad to me.

Greg
 
Dec 27, 2012
587
Precision Precision 28 St Augustine
I agree with Tally Ho. My last boat was a O’day 240. It was also a wing keel model. The keel on that model was never noted to be a problem . You could see the seam on the keel stub just like the 302 you pictured. The bilge never had a drop of water. My current boat is a Precision 28 and the story is exactly the same.
 
Feb 5, 2015
37
O'Day 302 Ottawa
I have an 88 O’Day 302. When I bought it 7 or so years ago, the keel joint weeped water. I had it surveyed by a double accredited surveyor and, apart from a potentially slight misalignment he attributed to volume boat construction values, he didn’t have any concerns about the keel or that the joint was weeping - but it bugged me. As per the O’Day manual, the keel bolts should be torqued annually as they will stretch. I torqued the bolts to their specified torque and the weeping went away. Then I caulked the joint. Keel is solid. No further issues (other than some recent small patch blistering on one side of the lower fin that I have to investigate).
Your pictures look like the keel joint was glassed over and that the glass has cracked - which would suggest to me that the keel joint has flexed. Regardless of the steel plate added under the keel bolt nuts, I would think that this could have happened from a grounding or would happen if the bolts aren’t kept torqued. As Voyager1 notes above, one bolt is under the mast support and hard to get at.
You wouldn’t be the first person to drop an O’Day 302 keel. Even if the stub is 3/4 inch thick, the 3M5200 is probably tired out by now and could use replacement. But you may also be the second (or third) person to drop the keel on this boat. An O’Day 302 with a steel plate and glassed over joint sounds familiar to me from reading through the forums here. Before dropping the keel, I would try to find the previous owner and ask them if they had any issues with the keel and what they did for their peace of mind. Maybe what they did, an up to date survey and a little torquing of the bolts will be good enough for you. All the best.
 
  • Like
Likes: jssailem
Apr 4, 2013
115
O'day 240 NY, NY (City Island)
I think the key question about the keel joint is whether or not the 3M5200 bond is intact, as others have pointed out. That bond in itself is strong enough to hold the keel on to the stub, as my own calculations of the tensile bonding strength of 5200 (enormous), and other owners' experience, have proved. So I would say that if you have the boat up on jacks, remove the keel bolts and jack the boat hull off the ground. If the keel stays on the stub, then you have a good bond and your joint is intact, and the only reinforcement I would consider at that point is some additional layup of fiberglass of the keel stub, as others have done. If there is any separation, then your bond has failed and its time to re-do that, as well as some additional layup if needed.

This may be counter-intuitive but really the most important part of the keel-hull joint is that 5200 bond. If that fails, I think it's only a matter of time before the fiberglass stub fails, unless it's been significantly reinforced. That's just how it was designed--the bolts sitting on top of the keel stub I don't believe were ever designed to be the primary, sole method of attachment. If that were the case there would have been much more detail in Hunt's drawings about the placement and number of bolts. What we have is instead is a specification on the adhesive to be used... so that tells you right there that the primary and strongest support for the keel was the adhesive, rather than the bolts.

I agree with others that your keel joint looks good (notwithstanding the test I propose above). If the PO glassed over the joint, some minor flexing is possible (5200 is flexible), and may have caused that slight crack that you see.