Thru-Hull Repairs.

[Carl-T705]

Mo, Frost and freezing is a powerful force for sure, I just bought a 20ft cuddy cabin cruiser with a fresh factory overhauled V8 engine that runs like a top . Only problem is the Previous owner forgot to winterize and the water pours out of the side of the block faster than the pump can draw in. It's always in the details!LOL
Have you checked for damage aft of the keel? Or another poorly repaired area back there?.

[Mo]

Rest was fine.

Rest of the boat looked fine. No keel damage and nothing seen aft. If I saw damage on the keel I'd be looking to the rear second. Too bad about the engine in the cuddy... Ice is wonderful stuff if you are playing hockey...its also very powerful and causes builds pressure. The very reason I don't believe in pink antifreeze in an engine...when it slushes up pressure is exerted...it will search out to the weakest component to release, where it be a water jacket, manifold, head, muffler,...it happens.

I'm not at all worried about Jim's boat right now. Have to say though, I didn't think she was very thick near the keel although she was well engineered structurally in the bilge. I'm sure had it not been for frost there would never have been a problem with her. I have never seen a keel support, flooring braces etc as numerous in a boat...perhaps they wanted to build a strong frame and lay light over it....didn't work once frost got to it.

[Sony2000]

Many C&C designed boats have an area infront of the forward bilge where water can accummulate and freeze. On my Paceship 29CB last year, there was water there, because the keel is in a two sections, left and right halfs, around the centerboard. My shipright suggested drilling a hole 12" to 18" below the void, and the water drained out. M4000 allows the hole to be reopened when necessary. I think the void was effectively filled with epoxy, but time will tell, as well as the drain hole will show.

[Mo]

Many C&C designed boats have an area infront of the forward bilge where water can accummulate and freeze. On my Paceship 29CB last year, there was water there, because the keel is in a two sections, left and right halfs, around the centerboard. My shipright suggested drilling a hole 12" to 18" below the void, and the water drained out. M4000 allows the hole to be reopened when necessary. I think the void was effectively filled with epoxy, but time will tell, as well as the drain hole will show.

I have a hole drilled in mine...has been there since I got her. We have about 15 boats in the club, various makes, that have tapped holes in lowest portion of keel for drainage.

[Mo]

More pics of the 34 footer pulled up on my trailer and repaired by a friend and myself...and relaunched in 34 hours.

Remember this Saber 34: My buddy Jim was racing her near Magdalin Islands in rough weather about 10 days ago and heard a thump like he hit something in the water. A while later chain plates came up through deck. I think the thump was the chain plates (rigged to keel on these) letting go. http://sailstrait.wordpress.com/2014...the-challenge/ he had been in 35 kts for hours when trouble rose it's head.

At the time I did the above repair I finished up with about 1/4 inch outside the keel at the forward. (Post #1, this thread...another bottle of rum on my boat yesterday...here's what Lou and I did....we laid a total of 6 inner layers of weave, mat, weave, mat, weave, mat,....then 17 layer of intermittent weave/mat on "both" sides...that will never break again. The forward keel nut was removed and we layed loads of FG in there. Jim took the boat to a boat yard in Magadlin Islands and had her lifted. The stern of keel had dropped about an 1/2 inch and was working loose in the storm. Forward was still up tight. That front bolt area that Lou and I reinforced held and that bolt held its own. The rest started to pull through and holes widened with shear forces. Keel might have come clear and fallen away had that one bolt not held and keep it up....

Jim is having the keel taken off and a whole new lay-up done inside and out...with some substance to it. When I was at that boat I said she was built too light around the keel joint...couldn't believe it. They fella's at the boat yard said "I think a bottle of good rum is in order for the yard that did this repair here"... 34 hrs on Labor day weekend to help a friend out.

[Dave Neptune]

Wow wow

Mo, ice job again and yer' friend owes a possible avoided swim to you!!

I have often wondered why cruisers don't kick the gong and do the same. I am no fan of a bolted keel offshore. I know of more than one dropping, getting loose or just plain disappearing. For the amount of work to "glass" it in and the additional width on the keel would do little as far as reducing performance, remember were cruising here lots of krap on the boat.

Internally ballasted boats just seem a safer option to me.

Dave Neptune

[Mo]

Mo, ice job again and yer' friend owes a possible avoided swim to you!!

I have often wondered why cruisers don't kick the gong and do the same. I am no fan of a bolted keel offshore. I know of more than one dropping, getting loose or just plain disappearing. For the amount of work to "glass" it in and the additional width on the keel would do little as far as reducing performance, remember were cruising here lots of krap on the boat.

Internally ballasted boats just seem a safer option to me.

Dave Neptune

Jim is a professional marine engineer (now retired) but he came and saw me yesterday and we chatted. He felt a thump and thinks he hit a whale or submerged object. No mark on keel...I think the thump was her chain plates, attached to keel, breaking as it was letting go...my theory. Anyway, Jim won't mess around with that...the guys told him they will remove the keel and lay in glass heavy enough to sustain the pressure and forces. It all works well when new but when boats start getting 25-35 years old the faults and flaws pop up...many a boat lost and no one knows why.

Just yesterday I was sailing home with about 20 kts blowing off the land...boat was flying at 7.5 steady for about 3 hrs so....don't want to contemplate a keel failure...she'd roll and torpedo in. That said, I know my FG is 1 1/2 thick at the bottom of the boat where the keel joint is so pulling through is not a likely option for it. There are stories of C&C 30's hitting rocks doing 7 kts with a chute up and only put a dent in the lead....leads to confidence...or over-confidence.

[Al Schober]

Even though this thread has nothing to do with Atomic 4s, I find it interesting.
I've seen fin keel boats that have hit things, and the major damage is usually at the aft end of the keel. Aft end of keel pushes upward, causing major structural and joinerwork damage. This is something different.
First thought is that someone (PO?) added a shower sump at the fwd end of the bilge, and that filled and froze. If I come up with something different (or new info is presented), I could change my mind.
Looks like a nice job on the repair. Personally, I would have used epoxy for a better bond to the substrate. Polyester makes a nice layup, but it's a lousy glue.

[Mo]

Drill a hole.

Even though this thread has nothing to do with Atomic 4s, I find it interesting.
I've seen fin keel boats that have hit things, and the major damage is usually at the aft end of the keel. Aft end of keel pushes upward, causing major structural and joinerwork damage. This is something different.
First thought is that someone (PO?) added a shower sump at the fwd end of the bilge, and that filled and froze. If I come up with something different (or new info is presented), I could change my mind.
Looks like a nice job on the repair. Personally, I would have used epoxy for a better bond to the substrate. Polyester makes a nice layup, but it's a lousy glue.

Al that repair was done almost 2 years ago and it didn't let go or faulter. The boat is built way too light. Where the crack was in the picture (where we fixed her) she was barely 1/4 thick glass....that is nowhere near enough for a keel area if they want to keep the boat at all. I've seen the hull crack aft of the keel as well...can't touch a hunter at all and they do it. My friend bough a hunter 38 and ran her on the rocks of Canso NS on his way back from Ontario with her (3 weeks ago)....she too is on the hard, keel, hull, rudder ...and a hole above the water line compliments of the rescue fishing boat...it is what it is.

We had one Hunter 32 here last spring and she "gapped" a visible crack when lifted in straps. It was about a foot back from the keel and a foot long in a smile shape across the bottom aspect of the hull. The guy had just bought her and although not evident with bottom paint etc, she was damaged. Layed it back down and the guy spent a few days on her to lay glass...fine since.

I may move up to something bigger at some point in the future but one thing is for sure...I have boats in my mind that I'd never own. Like watching a guy come off the dock, hook another boat with his stanchion and pull his stanchion out of the deck...with it 1/8 inch thick fiberglass deck piece with it....I wouldn't take the thing across the harbor...very popular name. I could care less how "pretty" they are, if they couldn't engineer it to take a smack someone else can have it.

My buddy has a beautiful Hunter Vision...I alway's say and I rib him daily (he beat me in a race the other day)..."nice boat..but it's still a Hunter" When fishermen up here have a boat built they go in when she's being layed up and they make the builders drill multiple holes to check thickness...that's not a bad concept...and they don't want any core.

[Mo]

This is something different.
First thought is that someone (PO?) added a shower sump at the fwd end of the bilge, and that filled and froze. If I come up with something different (or new info is presented), I could change my mind.
Looks like a nice job on the repair. Personally, I would have used epoxy for a better bond to the substrate. Polyester makes a nice layup, but it's a lousy glue.

When I first worked on it a almost two years ago (read posts) I thought she was built too light and not enough glass. I was swayed by the ice theory myself until his keel frigging near came off in the middle of the Gulf of St Lawrence a couple of weeks ago. Like being built too light...which, combined with having chainplates attached to the keel, a design issue that also should be looked into. Had nothing to do with a shower or ice...lighter, cheaper, faster. Beautiful boat inside and real nice woodwork etc...a shame.

I know Bill has a Saber as well but she's smaller. Jims boat, look at the pics, has so much length out ahead of her keel as well...what were they thinking making her 1/4 inch thick down low...unbelievable.

[sastanley]

A Catalina 30 is a solid hull all they way up to the hull/deck joint..no core..one reason she weighs over 10,000lbs. The deck is cored, but with 1/2" plywood and is still 1" thick. Even if it gets wet (and some of mine is) it is not a catastrophic failure like a balsa cored deck.

[Mo]

A Catalina 30 is a solid hull all they way up to the hull/deck joint..no core..one reason she weighs over 10,000lbs. The deck is cored, but with 1/2" plywood and is still 1" thick. Even if it gets wet (and some of mine is) it is not a catastrophic failure like a balsa cored deck.

Absolutely.

[ndutton]

The designers and builders produce boats that sell, simple as that. The pedigree for most sailboats is speed, always has been and to that end they are built lighter and lighter, engineered to the ragged edge. A great example is the current state of America's Cup boats. If the wind is over 15 knots the race is called for the safety of the crews and the last race series was held inside a protected harbor. These boats hit a floating grape and it's all over.

Another example is the recent loss of a new Columbia Carbon 32 in a race around Catalina and San Clemente Islands. The rudder broke away in a following sea and they broke up on the rocky lee shore in short order.

How many companies today build a well found blue water sailboat? I'm thankful fiberglass doesn't have the decency to rot away when it gets old and ugly so I can afford a solid boat (by today's standards).

[Dave Neptune]

Years ago when I was doing some performance glass work on small power boats I was amazed at some of what I would come across. One of my favorites was "skipped lamination schedules" on one side!!! I would find one side a 1/4" thick and the other at over 5/8", saw stuff like this from more than one mfg and on some pretty nice boats. Saw the same thing in production sailboats but I was not working to much on sailing stuff then.

Dave Neptune