[Public-list] Re: crack leak at the keel / water tank

[Brian and Elaine Timmins]

I went through both of these problems on #497.
  First, I spotted a consistant water leak that seemed to be coming from the
bow area. I spotted this under the forward cabin floor hatch. From reading
through the maintenance manual, I learned about repairing the Water Tank
Cover, which is where I deduced the leak was coming from (leak was worst
while sailing (heeled over)). I openned the cover, and found numerous spider
cracks in the gel coat of the tank body, mostly in the lower corner areas. I
scraped them with a can opener, filled them with marine tex (I think) and
coated the entire inside of the tank with fiberglass resin (West System).
After it was fully cured, I redid the cover with new sealant and fasteners.
This completely stopped the water leak in the bow interior.
   Meanwhile, from the first year that I hauled my boat after sailing, and
every year while on the hard, including a year after I had fixed the water
tank problem, I used to get that grey (literally) water leak and stalactite
formation under the forward area of the keel. I finally decided to find out
what was up with that and stripped that area of the bottom down to
fiberglass. I found some real minor damage to the gel coat on the lower
forefoot of the keel, and the grey water seemed to be coming from there. I
assumed that one of previous owners probably hit something causing the
cracks. I related the grey colored water to the filler used to fill the
voids in the ballast area of the keel (an old previous thread said concrete
was used for this). Being drill happy, I drilled several holes into the keel
where I assumed the void would be located. Sure enough, lots of water
drained from the holes. I let it dry for a couple of months over the winter.
Occasionally, I would use a heat gun to blow warm air into the area through
the holes to aid in drying it out. When the weather warmed consistantly
enough to work with epoxy, I poured several quarts of West System Resin in
to the void (through the higher holes). When it started to come out the
lower holes, I plugged them and continued pouring until it wouldn't take any
more (or I ran out of resin, or just got tired of pouring resin, I don't
remember which). I let the epoxy cure, filled the holes, faired the area,
barrier coated the exposed gel coat using West with the barrier additive,
and bottom painted.
  I owned the boat for two winters after that (and saw the boat this past
winter, total of 4 or 5 years after the repair) and have never seen the
"Grey Water" or "Stalactites" again.
--------------------------------------------------
  I propose that these two problems, a crack in the keel causing seepage,
and leaks in the water tank, are two seperate, totally independant problems.
I certainly would not think that water was leaking into the hull through
cracks in the hull and gathering in the water tank through cracks in the
tank. How much water do you have to allow to gather in the bilge before it
reaches the height of the bottom of the tank? How often do you pump your
bilge?  (rhetorical questions, please don't answer).
Regards,
Brian   ex#497 "Free Spirit"


 1091095161.0