Pearson 30 Keel repair

[Splash1]

During prep of bottom over protective coats, to apply this year's coat of anti-fouling paint, I found that the keel needs repair. It's my understanding, based on Owner's Manual, that the P-30 has a lead keel encased in the fiberglass hull, but the staining sure looks like rust. My plan is to sand the flaking, cracked damaged fiberglass off to get down to a smooth surface at the keel (be it lead or iron) and apply glass cloth and two part epoxy, sand, repeat probably for at least 3 layers (bummer).

I'm handy with this kind of thing, helped my Dad glass the bottom of a 16' wooden ski boat (kit plans) about 40 years ago.

Any thoughts out there on
(1) rust appearance?
(2) This plan of repair?

Splash1
SV AkaMaru
1973 P-30 #319

[sastanley]

Splash1,
The only remedy is grind down to good material and assess from there. Since glass and metal is involved, please wear a mask, even with a vacuum sander.

Been there done that back in the day on my C-30. On my boat, there is plywood in the bilge that often gets soft and then the keel sags away from the hull.

I do not know enough about your P-30 to know if it is lead or iron..there are a few P-30 owners around the forum, so they will hopefully chime in.

[azazzera]

I have a p30 and also have weeping from the bottom of keel. Last year I put about two gallons of polyester resin into voids sounded out to both port and starboard sides of keel. Mine is lead filled and don’t think any p30 are steel. I believe the smaller pearsons had bolted steel keels. After all the resin i injected into the keel I still get weeping out the bottom. Have not tackled that job yet. Perhaps next year. Good luck.

It might just be the angle but the aft keel blocking looks like it may be to far back. You probably know this, but should never go past where there is no support above it.

[joe_db]

Grind to metal and stick a magnet on it
I think this will be fixed by some glass and epoxy work

[ndutton]

Two piece hulls have a bond the entire centerline and the nether reaches of the keel are very difficult to do well. Then there's the question of the ballast. If it's lead as purported, what's the source of the rust? Obviously there's ferrous metal in the keel.

[Ram41662]

Just shooting the dark here, but have you checked the keel bolts and nuts for rusting? Is the bilge alway dry?

On my Newport 27 the was quite a bit of rust staining along the keel joint and on down the ballast. Unlike your case, mine also had some very obvious delamination of the covering over the lead core. The root cause was water getting in the bilge, finding it's way down around the keel bolts and eventually, with the help of several freeze/thaw cycles, out the side and bottom of the keel. My keel bolts turned out to be galvanized steel, so source for at least some of the rusty stain could be tracked back to there.

FYI, in this case, all the water causing the problem came in from weather, not from below. This damage happened while the boat was on the hard.

[ndutton]

Ram, no keel bolts. The fin is an integral molded part of the hull and internally ballasted. Lead ballast is in the specifications but this weeping stain looks pretty suspicious.

[azazzera]

All that glitters is not gold. The stain you presume is rust might be some other type of stain. If it is rust since the ballast is incapsulated lead, it’s probably traveling through the hull from som other source.

[edwardc]

Even with an encapsulated internal keel, as on my P-323, the mast step bolts pierce the fiberglass overcovering and are tapped into the lead. This can provide a path for bilge water to migrate into the keel.

The originals on mine were steel lags, and had corroded into nubs. i replaced them with SS lags when I rebuilt the step.