Keel Drop Advice Needed

[Lawrence B. Lee]

Fellow Vikings:
Well, we can't put it off any longer. There is a steady trickle of water coming into the bilge and it isn't the packing gland and it isn't the through hulls. It's the keel bolts. So the guys at the yard are getting ready to haul us out, drop the keel, clean the bolts and "reeve" the crud remaining and clean it all up. My question is: What to use to re-seal the keel to the bottom.

On this site I have seen support for 4200, 5200, epoxy and one or two other suggestions. Some say you'll never get it off again if you use 5200. My yard recommends it.

I hope to be knocking around the boat for at least five more years.

Any suggestions?

Larry Lee
Annabel Lee
E-32-200
Savannah, GA

 

[ted_reshetiloff]

You will get as many suggestions as responses I'm sure but if done correctly per the manufacturers instructions I'm sure either of the three methods would do just fine. Now for my $.02:

5200 and epoxy are both adhesives. Do you need an adhesive here? I would think what you really want is a sealant. I use Life Seal exclusively when bedding deck hardware and have been very happy with the results. This is Life "Seal" not Life Caulk. I have no use for life caulk. Horrible crap IMHO. I would think you would want to use something that is maybe a little flexible too. Epoxy while strong is very brittle. A bad grounding may be all it takes to put you back where you are now. 5200 probably offers some degree of flexibility but i pity the guy who has to do this job again in 20 yrs. OTOH do you really care about 20yrs? Hell 5200 may just work so well that no one has to do this job ever again? Good luck and Im sure what ever you use it will be just fine.

 

[u079721]

Our 38 was rebedded with epoxy. And while this might surprise some folks, I am going to recommend that you NOT go with epoxy.

The reason has to do with toughness or flexibility. Epoxy is pretty tough, but not as flexible as 5200. After a couple of seasons the front edge at the keel-hull joint on our epoxy bedded keel would crack from flexing during hard pounding. That crack was probably only surface deep, but there was no way to know how far in the water could go. So every time that happened I felt the need to grind out the crack and cover it with fresh glass. If we has used 5200 the whole issue would never have come up. Maybe some boats would not flex enough for that crack to form, but our Ericson sure did.

Regardless of what you use, be sure the surfaces are well prepped and cleaned. When our keel was dropped it was clear that the yard had not cleaned off the original mold release, and without cleaning that stuff off nothing would ever work.

 

[celtium]

Wrap the keel

When I had my keel dropped, I think the yard used 5200.

The interesting thing they did though...they wrapped the keel 4 times (I think) with 24 oz roving ( I think, but at any rate it was darn heavy). The yard said that at that point I didn't even need the keel bolts. Not that they didn't put new nuts etc. back on.

The yard is in Santa Barbara, CA. They said they had seen many a Catalina Smile over the years and the 'wrap' eliminated it, plus strengthened the hull/keel partner. FWIW.:nerd:

I will say that you need to make note of the way they retorque the nuts as the most aft one is under the galley sink and the yard had to make a special wrench to get to it. When they dropped the keel, they said that one was only about finger tight, go figure! But that was also the area where the keel stub was cracked and a piece of fiberglass about the size of a cinder block was replaced!!