Frank Langer
1984 Ericson 30+, Nanaimo, BC
You state that the leak is below the joint, but it looks to me that it's right at the joint of the hull and keel. It seems to me that the keel needs to be dropped and rebedded, an expensive but not uncommon repair in boats this age. Just my opinion...
I'm sure you'll hear from others as well.
Frank
Seems to be a common issue. You'll need to determine if it is water or something else. Here is my experience. https://ericsonyachts.org/ie/threads/keel-joint-weird-issue.14403/#post-108500
Frank did it right by dropping the keel and rebedding it. You could cover it over and try not to worry about it. Depends on your risk tolerance. That's what I did, but I'll confess to a minor nagging worry every now and again. I ground all the glass off of the keel joint, filled it with Sikaflex 291, tightened the keel bolts and glassed it over with West Systems G-Flex and fiberglass tape. The keel joint was sound at the last haulout. I would say it's not a deal killer if the rest of the boat is sound, but something that should be addressed before dropping back in the water.
Frank did it right by dropping the keel and rebedding it. You could cover it over and try not to worry about it. Depends on your risk tolerance. That's what I did, but I'll confess to a minor nagging worry every now and again. I ground all the glass off of the keel joint, filled it with Sikaflex 291, tightened the keel bolts and glassed it over with West Systems G-Flex and fiberglass tape. The keel joint was sound at the last haulout. I would say it's not a deal killer if the rest of the boat is sound, but something that should be addressed before dropping back in the water.
thanks. what's a ballpark cost for rebedding the keel? $5000?
Probably some water got caught in a void in the caulking, and drained out.
Most bottom prep includes digging out ancient keel bedding compound and adding new, and fairing.
Dropping the keel because of such drips--well, I'd get two other opinions.
Most bottom prep includes digging out ancient keel bedding compound and adding new, and fairing.
Dropping the keel because of such drips--well, I'd get two other opinions.
Pete the Cat
Member III
I don't think what I see there necessarily would mean dropping the keel. And this would not be an automatic deal breaker for me. If the leak was to the inside of the boat, I would certainly consider it a problem--you might look in the bilge to see what it might look like and pay attention to bilge water in the sea trial if you get that far. As folks have mentioned, cracks and drips at the keel stub (and it looks like that is where this is) is common and not always a problem. As Christian suggests, I would probably get a couple of opinions. One of them would be from someone at the yard with lots of experience in repair--someone who has done the work--I am sort of underwhelmed with the expertise in the surveyor world these days---seems like SAMS and AMS have graduated some folks who have read the books and passed the tests, but just do not really have practical boat repair and building experience--I have had some miserable recent experiences with poor surveys--so I would not rely solely on a single surveyor's comment in your purchase survey. I am told by my diver that I have a new crack in my keel stub joint and, because there is no leak internally, I am going to ignore it until my next scheduled haul. I will probably just torque the keel bolts when the boat is blocked and put some glass in there after digging around to see what is in there. Keels have fallen off some of the around the world racers with exotic keel arrangements, but I have never heard of one dropping off a decent production boat. I disagree with others who have suggested that dropping the keel is part of predictable maintenance of older production fiberglass boats (old wooden boats are a different matter). Most of those keels were put on at the factory with the idea that they would never be removed--properly applied 5200 is largely impossible to remove without removing the substrate it is glued to.