29 Ericson Keel

[BPaul]

Heavy winds in Northern Michigan caused our beloved South Wind to pull the cleats off the bow (mooring points) and run aground.
Once pulled off the shore she was taking in water, about 4 gallons per minute.
She was towed to safe harbour with a 2" gas pump keeping her dry.
She was immediatly pulled on to her cradle. The keel looked good except for the lower part where there was damage and sections missing. I was told that some of the keel may be hollow causing the leakagr through the bottom of the keel into the boat. Does anyone have information to verifiy this. It seems strange that damaging the bottom of the keel will cause leakage that extensive.
Any comments would be appreciated!

B. Paul

 

[Loren Beach]

Internal Ballast notes and other trivia

That's a tough break! Your insurance should fix it right up, though.
As to the hull, note that, like many different makes of boat from that era, the "hull" extends down to the bottom of the keel shape. Your ballast is a piece of cast lead that fits down inside that fin. There is almost always a portion of the cavity without ballast material in it. If the base of the fin is pounded on the bottom and cracks off a piece of frp, you will have a leak.
Some boat builders put a layer of frp over the whole ballast area an others left some of the depths open...
(For instance, there is a four foot deep (!) sump behind the ballast casting on the classic Cal 34-3, and this is where one places the bilge pump, mounted on a four foot long board and lowered down there and then secured in place!)

After getting the glass repair work done, do be sure to reinforce those bow cleats as well. There are several theads on this site about the makeup of the ballast and hull structure on the close relatives E-29 and E-27. There are also a lot of threads about adding backing plates to boats.

Best of luck,
Loren

 

[treilley]

Loren is right about those cals. I looked at one a few years back and the speed transducer was on the side of the keel about halfway down.

 

[Jarod]

I have an E27 which I believe has the same deep sump as the E29 in the aft end of the keel. It extends all the way to the bottom of the keel. This is the "achillies heel" of these two boats and some members have filled with epoxy/cement etc. to avoid this sort of a situation. It is the most vulnerable part of the boat and I will be doing something about mine at some point....sorry to hear about your troubles. I hope it goes well for you and your boat.

 

[Randy Rutledge]

My thoughts on the deep bilge is to cap it at about 6” down and incorporate a float valve to allow water to go down but not up with about a 4” rise on the float valve to create a shallow bilge to catch ice box drainage and any topside water. There would be a pass-through to connect a remote bilge pump to empty the deep bilge and a 3” threaded access hole that would normally be plugged. All openings would be threaded to allow closure if needed and an automatic bilge pump in the new shallow bilge to keep it dry

 

[timday5]

I like having a deep bilge - in the event the automatic bilge pump fails, there is some capacity to hold rain water intrusion, etc, without damage to the cabin woodwork until the failure is discovered.

The 32" deep sump in my E-27 is a bit much though.

Randy, your concept sounds interesting. Is it possible to get the new glass to adhere to the old robustly enough to serve as a second (inner) hull though?

 

[Glyn Judson]

Talk abut deep bilges.

All, The bilge in the E31 aft of the keel is 47" deep but so small that I doubt that it would even hold two gallons of water. It's so narrow that a conventional Rule type pump is too big to make all the way to the bottom. The solution is to have a water sensor at the end of a long, teak 1X3 and a bilge water pickup below that leading to an ITT diaphragm pump (12v motor, belt driven) located in the port, forward lazarette. Glyn Judson, E31 hull #55, Marina del Rey, CA

 

[Randy Rutledge]

It will take a lot of cleaning and then a few blocks of wood or glass layup stuck to the sides to rest the new bilge floor on while tabbing cures. The floor will need to be a few inches down in the deep bilge and may have to be in two pieces to allow its installation. I think that a mixture of west with the high density filler would be my choice for a way to bond the floor to the walls followed by a couple layers of mat. The joint could be tested for leaks by pouring water in and if it does not leak down you are good. The new floor must be strong enough to hold the water pressure should there be a failure below and hopefully slow the intrusion to a weep if not stop it completely.