Keel Bolt Design (and Repair)

[Cory B]

Hello,

We have our new-to-us 1984 Ericson 35 in the yard, doing a multitude of repairs and rejuvenation treatments. This morning we dropped the keel, due to a very strong suspicion that a little bit of water was getting in through the keel-hull joint, and that my wife had heard too many horror stories about keels falling off boats, and then bad things happening to the people on the boats.

Anyway, it came off pretty easily, and this is what we saw: of the 12 bolts, about 6 looked as good as new, another 3 had a little corrosion, but not enough that I'm going to loose any sleep over it, and another three were really ugly. There were large notches missing from the bolts. The corrosion corresponded to roughly where the washers under the bolts were - so the bottom couple inches of the bolts were good, and the top couple were good, but it was just bad in the middle. The aft most bolt had less than 1/2 of its metal remaining.

I believe that the bolts are a "J" shape cast in the keel, so that they probably cannot easily be pulled out. The yard is suggesting that we "sleave" the suspect bolts... basically cutting a larger hole in the hull, and screwing in something over the suspect bolts that will substantially connect the good upper and lower parts of the bolts. They say it will look odd, but that it should work. Another option is to add a few keel bolts... for some reason I think the yard would rather not go this route. Does anyone have a thoughts or preferences on this?

When it is all said and done, we will epoxy the hull and keel together (they will hang the boat in the travelift as the epoxy sets).

Also, according to the Ericson specs, all the bolts are supposed to be 1" or 3/4", but the aftmost bolt is definitely smaller (the one under the dustbin on the 35). Are other peoples like that? It wobbles in the keel, making me think there was a goof in the casting.

Incidentally, the E35 and E38 have the same keel, just the 38's goes a little deeper.

Sorry for such a longwinded post,
- Cory Bolton
1984 Ericson 35 #166

 

[Chris Miller]

Bad bolts...

Cory, we had a very similar issue on our 38... and we're not the only ones. That joint is just a trouble spot on these boats. We had the offending bolts replaced, although not exactly like you described, with 316 rather than the original 304 and things have been good ever since.

This topic was discussed in some detail in Ted's "Surveying an E38-200" thread.

It's a bummer, but do it now rather than later

 

[Cory B]

Replaced?

Chris,

Do you know how they replaced them? I thought the "J" bolts were nearly impossible to remove... although I think I did see on some thread something about melting them out.... scary...

- Cory

 

[Chris Miller]

I'll look, but...

I'll have to dig up the original repair order and docs, but I think they cut off the offending stuff and welded new on. I don't recall the specifics, as that was 5 years ago... but that was the basic concept.
I'll post back when I find it.

 

[Cory B]

Picture

Chris, I'd love to hear what the yard did with your bolts, and ballpark what they charged. I hate talking to the yard about this kind of stuff blind.

And for the faint of heart, please don't read any further. This is a picture of our aft most keel bolt. It looked fine from above before dropping the keel. It is by far the worst of the bolts...

- Cory

 

[rwthomas1]

Wow, thats ugly! What were the symptoms that led you to remove the keel? How do you know this is happening?

I should add that the keel bolts on my '83 E38 are not in that pattern. There are two, side by side, in each bilge well and judging by the apparent width of the keel mine is quite a bit wider. I have the shoal draft keel though. RT

 

[Chris Miller]

Yep, that's it!

Ours weren't quite to that point, but getting there (photo below). I checked the records... the invoices weren't terribly detailed. Basically they cut them off flush and either welded or drilled/tapped new ones on. Then remounted. Whole job including mast pull/storage/step and all the other stuff was a little less than $8000. The insurance surveyer felt like the guy was overpriced by about $1500-2000, but the guy was shady- and finished up during the night and told them to take a long walk off the pier. I wasn't impressed with the guy or his company, but the work has held up well.

 

[Loren Beach]

Keel rebed notes

The picture of the corrosion-dimmished keel bolt is a grim reminder of why it is good to do a keel rebed every so many years as a preventative maint. idea. We had our keel dropped at SCBW (same yard) several years ago because of seepage around one of the bolts and a fear that invisible corrosion might be happening around the threads of one or more of those big ol' SS bolts.
It turned out that a bit of surface rust was the worst we found... and that the factory had seemingly not removed the mold-release wax on the bottom of the hull when dropping it onto the keel. Thus the sealant never really got a grip.
Bilge is bone dry ever since.
I sure hope that the work on Cory's Ericson goes well. FWIW, the yard is a long time builder of custom sailing and power boats and has a lot of repair and upgrade background.

(Disclaimer -- I have no business or financial connection with them; just a customer.)

Loren in PDX
1988 Olson 34

ps: On the theory that the boat was already out and the keel was off, we had them drop the rudder and check the top where the shaft is supposed to be sealed. Ours looked just fine, and they later generated a short letter atesting to the observed condition of both the keel joint and rudder shaft just in case our insurance co might be curious about it sometime in the future.

 

[Cory B]

Why we dropped the keel

Rob,

We almost did not drop the keel. When the boat was hauled for survey about 2 months ago, the surveyor noted a seam was visible in the front part of the keel. He then kicked/pushed it pretty hard to see if any bilge water would run out (the bilge had more water in it than I would have preferred seeing), and nothing came out, so I thought all was well.

A few weeks later we went down to Alameda to pack the boat up for trucking, and spent a few nights on board. I noticed that the bilge pump was occasionally cycling for no apparent reason.

A few more weeks later, the boat was blocked up at the boatyard here in Portland, and I could see a very very slightly weepage in the front of the keel... probably the truck ride up I5 opened it up a little. At that point we let boat paranoia take over and asked the yard to drop the keel. We're glad we did.

The only signs from the interior that there might be a problem was water in the bilge, and rusty washers (although the aft washer looked fine). The bolts and nuts looked just fine.

And Loren is correct that the boat is at Schooner Creek in Portland, undergoing a list which of repairs and restoration which is both sucking our time and draining our banking account. I have a reasonable amount of faith and confidence in SC, but I still like to know as much as possible from different sources.

- Cory Bolton

 

[Loren Beach]

Progress!

I stopped by the yard to pick up the new issue of Lat 38 today. The E-35/3 now has a keel back in place with some sort of fairing stuff on the lead. Rudder was getting faired also, and the trailing edge had some work done on it. Things are evidently moving along rapidly now. (I hope that someone has some photos to document the fix for the corroded bolts.)

Looking at the deep V of the forward hull and the general deep round shape of the bottom it is more obvious than ever that this a LOT more boat than our only-a-foot-shorter Olson....

IMHO these are more like a reduced-dosage version of the E-38.


Even propped up in the yard it looks powerful and built to slice into those five footers on the way up the WA coast in the summer afternoon strong winds.

Best,
Loren in PDX

 

[Cory B]

Update

I've been meaning to post a "conclusion" to this for a while now. The yard proposed and I agreed to an over-engineered solution. It entailed chopping down a lot of the bolts to below their "rotted" point, externally sleaving them, inserting a stainless stud to make up the difference, enlarging the holes in the keel shoe, using some strange hold-down nuts, making very very stout backing plates, and encasing everything in epoxy. I know I should never say never, but the keel will never fall off.

And Loren's description of the 35-3 as a "reduced" 38 is pretty accurate. We've had a lot of people come by and ask if its a 38.

- Cory Bolton

 

[Randy Rutledge]

Is it possible dissimilar types of stainless were used? Bolts, washers and nutswith the lead of the keel is a source of problem. Water, and dissimilar metals create a battery and one of the plates will erode away. Also a submerged bilge pump (like I am installing in my boat) will add to the electrolysis process. I have seen the motor shafts of bilge pumps eaten away.

Cory you said you have everything sealed, that should eliminate (greatly reduce) the electrolysis process.

Hopefully the metals are the same. Also one stainless against another is not like brass or aluminum against stainless. There is enough stock it would take a long time for your keel bolts to erode way.

Good luck and sail fast and often

 

[Frank Langer]

So, assuming that we all have boats between 15 and 30 years old, many in salt water for much, if not all of the year, and assuming that we don't all want to undertake the effort and cost of dropping the keel and replacing the keel bolts, what can be done in a preventive way, or at least to reasonably assess the situation, to ensure that we only undertake this significant repair when it's needed. I don't want to have this work done unnecessarily on my boat, but also don't want to lose the keel to the bottom of the ocean and then capsize, because I didn't recognize a potential problem.

Any thoughts on how to reasonably assess whether this is becoming a problem on our boats, and then, what the best method of repair is, if our keel bolts are being corroded?

I'll appreciate any opinions on this topic.

Frank.

 

[Chris Miller]

slow leak...

Ours started with a slow leak that got worse over time.
Our surveyer suggested 2 issues leading to our eventual need for a rebed/repair: 1. Ericson used 304 stainless instead of 316 on the keelbolts. 2. galvanic corrosion, we double zinc and I'm looking at getting a galvanic isolator, there is TONS of stray current at most marinas. I really wish there was a way for marinas to test and inform (or lightly enforce) owners about stray current issues... I'd like to know if I'm adding to the problem, and I bet other owners would as well.
Chris

 

[Cory B]

Keel Dropping

I can't with any confidence say what lead to the problem in our case. I believe one or two of the keel bolts were weeping just a little bit of saltwater into the bilge, as well as a very leaky shaft seal when underway. Stainless does not not like sitting unprotected in saltwater - especially stagnant oxygen-free water which I believe may have been trapped in some of the threads. We also installed a PSS and all new bilge pumps/switches and wiring just to be sure.

In the case of our boat at least, the original keel bedding was pretty poor. The keel shoe still had the mold release wax on it, and the bedding itself smelled like some kind of latex, and was thinly and unevenly applied. I believe if Ericson had bed the keel better at manufacture time this whole episode could have been avoided, but then again, it has been 22 years.

As to when you should drop a keel, in my opinion, any time you suspect that water is weeping in from the keel hull joint. From my reading (and I read alot), it is nearly impossible to get a long term fix without dropping the keel. The bolts looked mostly OK from the inside the boat, but there was some rust visible on the washers.

For the sake of other Ericson owners, I hope our case was an unusual one.

Cory Bolton

 

[rwthomas1]

I have struggled with the same issue on my E38. Should I or should I not be concerned about keelbolt corrosion issues? I was concerned when I had a leaking shaft seal as salt water would collect in the bilge and I wasn't sure where it was coming from. I corrected the leaking shaft seal by adjusting the shaft packing. Since then there is no significant accumulation of water in the bilge. When the bilge is dried completely and the boat is not used/engine run, with no rain, it stays dry. There are still two issues that I worry about:
-The keel/hull joint can be seen as a hairline crack from outside the hull while on the hard
-Some of the keelbolts/washers have a rust stain around them.
The keel/hull joint does not appear to weep water when on the hard but the rust stains will reappear after cleaning. Is this an issue? Tough to tell. I have no way of knowing if the keel was ever rebedded. I worry about the possibility of corrosion but I certainly cannot afford to have the repair/rebedding performed anytime in the next year. I just have to cross my fingers and hope. RT

 

[Frank Langer]

I appreciate the posts so far, as this does seem to pose a problem for several of us. The reason for my post above is that the previous owner re-caulked the keel/hull joint about 5 years ago (but I'm pretty sure he didn't drop/rebed the keel to do so). Now, when I bought my boat (1984 Ericson 30+) the survey showed a hairline crack at the aft end of the keel (looks about a foot long), and the surveyer recommended recaulking the joint when I next haul out, but not urgently. The bilge stays completely dry when the boat is docked, but it does have about a cup of salt water in it after an afternoon of brisk sailing. As I have a dripless shaft seal, I think the only way that water could be getting in there is through the hull/keel joint flexing under sail, especially if the boat is heeled a bit and creating more pressure on the keel.

I would be interested in knowing if others have this experience as well, and any suggestions or advice.

Thanks,
Frank.

 

[treilley]

I looked at my keel bots today and they all look great from above. The one odd thing I noticed though is that there is no washer or nut on the aft most bolt under the dust pan. Is this common? I would like to install one but the bilge in that area is steeply sloped and the washer and nut could not sit flat.

Any ideas?

 

[Frank Langer]

I don't think you will be able to tighten it to the right degree if the washer and nut don't sit flat--maybe that's why there isn't a washer on that bolt. It will be interesting to hear from others on this as well.
Frank.

 

[ted_reshetiloff]

Frank You said:"The bilge stays completely dry when the boat is docked, but it does have about a cup of salt water in it after an afternoon of brisk sailing."

How do you know you are getting a cup of salt water? You're not tasting it are you?

My 38 had a cracked seam there near the bow. The keel will need rebediing but like others have mentioned its too expensive to do this year. I think it was weeping a little around the fwd bolt but this spring I glassed the joint up with 24oz biaxial cloth and faired it back. I will see this fall if it held when I haul out fo rthe winter. My plan is to save the money and do the cabin sole and rebedding in the same project as getting to several bolts on my boat is not possible right now.