wet hull?

[David]

I drilled a hole in the keel near the rudder and some black water dripped out. Other holes had no water but a puff of air pressure escaping. Seems that there are some airtight cavities and others that water seeped into in the hull.

My thoughts are to drill several weep holes along the length of the keel and let any water drip out. Of course I'll epoxy them before painting.

Any thoughts on this? In particular, anything to watch out for around the centerboard or external ballast? What about making a bigger hole and forcing air through it with a fan to thoroughly dry the area?

 

[rtyszka]

water from hull

David, is there any delamination in that area? On my last boat I had very similar issue. I drilled a hole, I had water (almost resin smell) and on one of the holes I had a pressure build up where there was a puff of air. It ended up being a blister or delamination of the glass. I have not seen anyone else reporting these boats blistering, but old repairs could I guess. Also the lower part of the hull near where the rudder connected looks suspect, do you think that was leaking maybe?
Richard

 

[David]

delamination

I just don't know enough about the design/construction to say. I think that either the boat has cavities in this area or there is delamination. When I was drilling the holes I did feel a layer of air between two layers of fiberglass. Nothing is obvious from the outside (e.g. no blisters).

The heel that the rudder sits on does have some exterior cracking. I haven't ground that down to see how deep it is yet.

 

[rtyszka]

easy fix

Either way you are not in bad shape there, its an easy repair. Really its a choice on if you grind down the glass or just inject epoxy, the big question is where the moisture came from. If it was from delamination that would actually be an easier reason, if there is a leak from rudder or other cavity, you might be chasing it for a while. I would "tap out" the area to see if there is delamination, if there is more and the water freezes, more damage, if you don't freeze there all the better.

 

[David]

freezing

The overnight lows get below freezing, but only enough to make frost. So I should be fine in terms of more damage. I'm still leaning towards a little exploratory grinding. I'll update this thread with what I find (probably a few weeks).

 

[Anonymous]

Wet hull - encapsulated ballast

I don't know how the Challengers are built but keel-centerboard boats of the day often had the ballast encapsulated within the hull moulding. Hinckleys and old Morgans are that way. Morgan List discussions often turned to voids found between the hull glass and the lead. Repair strategies turned to how to dry/drain the water and inject resin.

This is a different problem to the osmotic damage to water-soaked layups but you could have both. It doesn't take much free styrene in the resin to give you the smell but the osmotic damage smell is more offensive than the styrene; nastier chemicals are being created.

I would suggest that water draining out can be distinguished from the awful gooey exudate from osmotic damage. And if you fear the latter, get an experienced 'glassman to look at her.

D

 

[David]

core sample

I used my hole saw to get a better look. The port side seems to just have a single layer that delaminated. The starboard side seems to have a visible cavity

Both core samples seem adequately thick:

My thoughts are to:
1) drill a drain hole at the bottom of the cavity
2) flush with acetone to get rid of remaining water/particles
3) use a epoxy pump to inject epoxy into the cavity

I'm guessing that the water came from the crack in the highlighted area in this photo:

 

[Anonymous]

Your cavities

I think you're out of the woods from the osmotic damage standpoint, nice clean-looking cores. How'd they smell?

Your repair idea seems right on. Drill a few from the bottom, let her dry for as long as possible; you could even leave your shop vac running for a week or so, pulling nice dry California air through the void. (I dried a rudder that way) Patch your cores with properly scarphed in glass (8:1), figure out how to pump in the epoxy and monitor its progress throught the void. Possibly drill multiple holes into the void and wood plugs ready to close em as the resin reaches 'em; drill out the plugs after the resin kicks. Important point to ponder is the exotherm as the resin kicks; I've had problems filling a 3/4" thick void under the maststep in the Morgan; wondered whether the resultant smokey, burned-looking filler had any structural value and worried about damaging the surrounding boat. (viewed after a subsequent dissassembly, it was apparently OK)

I think the crack at the gudgeon is more likely temperature related, bronze-glass, and I'd doubt that it communicates with the void.