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

[Alfredo]

The keel on Free Spirit is sound. The repaired area is not noticeable
from the rest. The water tank is perfect and no residue taste has been
detected. I would say that Brian’s repair were successful.


Alfredo

--- Brian and Elaine Timmins <timmins at optonline.net> wrote:

> 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"
> 
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> 



		
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