voids in the keel

[azazzera]

I decided to strip the paint off the keel to see if there were any blistering or signs of delamination. I noticed an area that sounded hollow. I immediately thought delamination so took to sounding out the rest of the keel. The picture shows the boundaries of the more hollow sounding parts of the keel. I decided to put a few holes in the lowest hollows and water flowed out. I let the water drain then put a larger hole to get a better sense of how deep the void was. So a few questions: how normal are voids like this with encapsulated keel ballasts during manufacturing. If not normal than Im assuming that the fiberglass became separated from the lead ballast at some point. Were did the water come from? It could have come from the bilge finding a route down over time or by osmosis through the glass from the outside which I think is less likly due to the large lack of blistering that I see and my hope that its from the bilge because that would be easier to fix. I would think that these voids should be filled as best possible. My thought would be with thickened epoxy. If its not known from the pictures its a pearson 30 '72' or '73'. the boat leaked from every deck fitting before I repaired and rebedded them. Lots of spots with extremely wet balsa core. repaired. All this would explain the slow weeping of water from the bottom of the keel.

Any and all advice on how to dry the keel out then pursue a fix. Thanks.

http://www.moyermarine.com//forums/picture.php?albumid=187&pictureid=1907

http://www.moyermarine.com//forums/picture.php?albumid=187&pictureid=1906

[GregH]

When I bought my Alberg 30 it had a leak/weeping out through the forefoot of the keel. once I pried the former repairs off I took a grinder to the wet FG and drilled some holes. Some of it was just mush. It's been on the hard the past year and drying out as I do a refit. It took a lot of work to find the area in the bilge where it was leaking down into the ballast encapsulation. From anecdotes I hear it is fairly common.

Next spring I will grind it fair and then build back up with cloth and epoxy.

[ndutton]

Once dried out you are correct on the remedy although I don't think you need to go the expense of epoxy for an excellent repair. My Westsail was internally ballasted with three lead castings. Once they were placed in the hull thickened polyester resin (aka boat-lam) was poured into the voids filling the area to the top of the lead, then several laminations of mat and woven roving were placed on top to form a bilge bottom. We probably used 15 gallons, could have been more.

The thickening agent must be structural regardless of whether you use epoxy or boat-lam. Some agents are, some aren't. If using boat-lam you'll have to be aggressive with the catalyst as the ballast will suck the heat out of the reaction and slow it down considerably.

Here is a picture of the lead going in my Westy, hull mold can be seen in the background.