Hello, I am looking to purchase my first boat and have come across a wing keel 22. I have not seen the boat yet but I am hoping to get some insight on any potential issues. It looks like a few cracks have formed between the keel bolts. If so is this normal? How does the condition of the bolts look? It looks like a raised area of the keel "circled in red", any thoughts on this?
What's going on with this keel? How do these keel bolts look?
- Thread starter Chipmunk88
- Start date
From the picture anyway, the keel bolts and nuts look like they are in good shape. It's possible the washers have rusted. The bilge has a layer of mung that may be what's making the washers look bad. Take those tubes off of the bolts, they could cause crevice corrosion if they trap water that then gets oxygen depleted - I can't see any purpose for those tubes. The outside of the keel looks decent, ideally it would stripped down to lead, epoxy coated and faired. The area you circled may just be missing paint or it could be the keel casting - either way it shouldn't be a problem. The keel to hull joint looks good so the bolts/adhesive are working. If you can, I would clean-up a section of the bilge and one or two keel bolts to see how they look.
