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Boat service yard recommendations in Puget Sound

jimmi

Jimmi
I'm looking to buy an 1986 Ericson 32-3 in overall very good shape but with quite a bit of water in the bilge. Since last 2 months have been without rain and the boat has a dripless shaft seal I'm thinking about a possible keel bolts leak. What service yard would you guys recommend for this type of job and what should I expect to pay? I'm asking for ballpark numbers because I've seen it can go up to 10k, but I wonder if that's the norm these days or I could hope for less.
Thanks!
 

Loren Beach

O34 - Portland, OR
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
My friends at Port Angeles seem to like their local boar yard... probably a bit of a trip for a Seattle sailor, tho....
 

bgary

Advanced Beginner
Blogs Author
There are a variety of good yards around. I've been happy with Everett Yacht Service (although, the owner is in the process of selling the business, not sure what that will do to their services or prices). Seaview in Seattle is very highly thought of, as is CSR marine.

I guess what I'd suggest is, do what you can to "triage" the problem and see if you can identify what's going on before it goes into the yard. If you go in saying "I need to have the keel dropped, rebedded and the bolts tightened", that's a well-bounded project. If on the other hand you go in saying "there's water in my bilge and I don't know why".... that's a really fuzzy boundary and likely to add significantly to the cost. "Investigation" hours are charged, just like any other hours.

Some things I did when I was trying to figure out where bilge-water was coming from included
-- isolating the forward pocket of the bilge so I could tell which water was coming from the mast, separate from the rest of the bilge
-- putting sponges downhill from the rudder post and the propeller shaft, so I could tell if water was coming in through either
-- putting paper towels around thru-hulls to see if any were leaking
-- taste the water in the bilge. fresh? salty? (yeah, I know... make sure your shots are current)
-- test to see if water-level rises while at rest, or only while motoring (or heeling)
Etc.

$.02
Bruce
 

jimmi

Jimmi
Thanks Bruce! That is a really good plan to follow and narrow down the problem.

If there are other suggestions about boat yards especially around Everett let me know - I might have the boat moored in Everett if slips are available.
 

bgary

Advanced Beginner
Blogs Author
narrow down the problem.
I should have added - in my case, I found three things to fix, and two to live with

1) at speed, water was pressing up through the rudder gland. Filling the relevant area of the rudder tube with grease periodically, mitigates that

2) at speed, water was pressing up through the near-the-waterline bilge-pump outlet, past the anti-siphon loop and into the bilge. New anti-siphon loop and some hose re-routing fixed that. Note that centrifugal pumps do not act as check-valves in the way that diaphragm pumps do, so if there's water in the hose, it will come right through the pump and into the bilge (unless you install a check-valve, but anecdotally that hamstrings the effectiveness of the pump, and doesn't really solve the problem - it simply makes it so you have a hose full of water instead of water in the bilge.)

3) it appears (?) that some small quantity of rainwater comes into my boat through the cockpit scuppers. I suspected that the scupper fitting was no longer properly bedded but I addressed that and still see some signs. My guess is there's a crack in a scupper hose. It's "on the list" to fix, but as it is sporadic, not harmful, not a safety issue (the hose is above the waterline from end to end), merely annoying.... it's not currently at the top of the list. I also suspect that one of my cockpit hatch lids allows some rainwater in. Same story. On the list to fix

the two I have resolved to live with are

1) rainwater. Comes down through the mast and into the bilge in surprising quantity. No real way to prevent it.

2) whatever water you "think" you've emptied out of the bilge, there's more lurking in hidden resources under the structural grid, and it will come out into the main bilge when the boat next heels. No real way to get rid of it. Best I've found is to dump some bilge cleaner into the bilge a couple of times a year and slosh it around during a sporty sail so that, at the very least, when that mystery water shows up later it won't be so stinky.
 
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