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Lead in bow: 35-2 w rear engine

robjpowell

Member II
As the owners of a 1976 E35-2 with the rear engine (under the companionway stairs NOT under the dinette) I have seen references about the trim compensating lead in the bow of these boats. Today, in preparation for installing a windlass I have started to remove the lead. I wanted to post a few pictures and some info here for anyone else contemplating this job.

Location: Small bow locker immediately aft of the anchor/bow locker
What: Fiberglassed in lead
How much: 12 ingots with a total weight of 291lb (~24.3lb per)

IMG_2010.jpgIMG_2009.jpgIMG_2011.jpg
 

Dave N

Member III
Wow, is that a factory job ? My '79, rear engine, does not have that....
 
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Glyn Judson

Moderator
Moderator
lead in the bow.

Rob and all, For what it's worth, of 73 E31's made, my records show that 21 of them had lead in the bow in the same area you describe and my boat was no exception. I was flat out tired of having to scrub grass and Dorado worms off the hull from above the anti-fouling paint. One Saturday I was determined to find out just what was making my bow heavy. I removed every single object in the V-berth including anchors, chain and even the Nylon rode and still the bow was low. I drained the 25 gallon auxiliary fresh water tank and checked to see that the holding tank was empty, still no change. Only after peeking down the sides of the water tank with a flashlight, did I see the faint outline of something glassed over way down there kind of like alien eggs. Out came the tank and plywood platform it sat on with the job put off until Monday when I could call Bruce King to ask him about the ingots. Oh, did I mention that all 21 of our boats that I know of, at one time or another had 500# of lead up there? Bruce told me to "Take the damn things out" given that he had no knowledge of them being there in the first place despite his admitting that he'd overseen the building of virtually every E31. My best guess is that maybe only a single, early owner or possibly several of them might have reported back to the factory that the boats had a tendency to hobby horse or something similar as part of a survey Ericson sent to the first 19 to 15 owners asking for input and improvement suggestions. By the way, the Ericson Independence emerged as a result, beginning with hull #25 and according to the original owner of hull #02, all his suggestions included on his survey were incorporated. That said, every original owner I've interviewed, reported never mentioning the light bow issue to the factory. In any event, I removed all of mine with no ill effect, actually only a positive one, she finally sat properly on her lines for the first time since leaving the factory. The odd thing about the choice of hulls fitted with lead in the bows followed no logical pattern. They started glassing the lead in at hull #19 and the last one was hull #65, some having lead and others not, go figure. Glyn Judson, #E31 hull #55, Marina del Rey CA
 

Dave N

Member III
Our 35-II does sit a wee bit high in the bow, so we moved the waterline stripe accordingly. We try to pay attention to where we stow things. Don't think that I would want to haul around an extra 300 - 500 pounds dead weight just for trim....
 
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robjpowell

Member II
Glyn,
That is interesting -size and location. I did not think to look in the second locker back -the one with the auxiliary water tank on the 35-2. Or, is it that on the E31 you only have one locker under the V-berth? Maybe I will find there is yet another surprise in there. Personally I have not noticed a trim issue and I had been under the impression this lead was balancing compensation for when some engines were installed under the companionway and rather than the salon settee return. Maybe that was wishful thinking? Anyway, in our case the boat has never had a windlass or dedicated chain storage (Great Lakes racing background) and I plan on installing approx 220lb all up of anchor, windlass, chain and rode. If my math is right it will pretty nicely balance out what I just removed.
Rob
 

Glyn Judson

Moderator
Moderator
Getting the lead out.

Rob, You are correct, lead in the E31's was located in the second locker aft. You bring up a good point in that the lead in your boat might have been there to compensate for engine placement. Good luck with the windlass install. If your experience will be anything like mine, I paid way more for 60 feet of #0-1 wire than I did the windlass itself. I used a Blue Sea 150 amp breaker immediately adjacent to my batteries to port of the engine and ran them up to the chain locker. There I added a Blue Sea terminal strip that acts as a power source for a macerator and cabin light in the locker so I can see what I'm doing when opening and closing the holding tank seacock, etc. Cheers, Glyn
 

Attachments

  • Hull #55, Apollo 1 1:2" holding tank seacock.jpg
    Hull #55, Apollo 1 1:2" holding tank seacock.jpg
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  • Hull #55, Blue Sea 150 amp windlass breaker.jpg
    Hull #55, Blue Sea 150 amp windlass breaker.jpg
    120.8 KB · Views: 74

steven

Sustaining Member
291# is almost as heavy as the A4. So if you are in trim, and move the A4 back 3 or 4 four feet, and try to compensate with that much weight in the stem, say 12 to 15 feet fwd of where the A4 was, you would trim down by the bow.

So seems like the extra bow weight would be adjusting for something other than the aft placement of the engine.
 

robjpowell

Member II
Steve,
There is one assumption you make that affects the conclusion. Yes the weight is forward 10-12ft from where the A4 was but that is not the same as 10-12' forward of the CG. If the A4 was already 6' behind the balance point then it might well be what was required. As I don't know the actual balance location I can't confirm or deny my theory.
Rob
 

Seth

Sustaining Partner
31 or 35-2?

This thread was about the 35-2 with rear engine, right?

Here is the deal, you can certainly add some weight in the bow area to make the boat float on it's lines a little better, BUT, this will have 2 negative effects: 1). Pitching moment will be worsened (ever seen a see-saw?) in a seaway, and of course you are dipping into your weight carrying capacity (the point where too much weight affects speed and acceleration).

If I had your boat, I would use this space for storage-especially when at at anchor/mooring/dockside. When sailing, move as much gear as you can from the aft lockers to the forward or middle part of the boat. When sailing, I would work on minimizing the weight carried aft of the companionway.

As you know, everything is a trade off, and the best of the 35-2's from a sailing perspective were the mid engine models. Not much you can do about that, but in the interest of making the boat perform optimally, these are things you can do.

Raising the stripe is another idea, but I would NOT add weight..

2 cents, ka-ching!

S
 

steven

Sustaining Member
Rob,

you are correct of course in principle.

but . . .
by eye from the hull plan in the brochure, I'd say CG is about 2 to 3 feet fwd of the engine - call it 3 (but this number doesn't matter directly - note that it is not used in the arithmetic). The engine moving from mid to aft position looks to move back around 5 feet (this number does matter). The CG looks to be around 12 feet aft of the fwd storage cavity (this number does matter).

Then, required offsetting weight in the bow would be around (5 feet * 310 lbs )/12 feet = 129 lbs.

So why put 300ish lbs up forward, especially given the known disadvantages pointed out by Seth? Maybe they just forgot to put the ingots in the bilge?
 

Loren Beach

O34 - Portland, OR
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
A s.w.a.g. !

I could toss in some uninformed speculation, based on human nature...
In the 70's the factory had a pool into which they launched each new Ericson to quickly check it for leaks and general QC.
Maybe there was a foreman in charge who was zealous about getting each boat to float on its lines.
Maybe, no matter what the options were installed to each build order, he did not consider the ramifications of adding lead in areas that might adversely affect how that particular hull might handle in a seaway.

Or maybe, he had reasonably good intensions but just was not very good at looking at the floating hull in a very short period of time and estimating how much lead might be needed, if at all, and where it might be stowed -- out of sight.

Lot of 'maybes', and it would be great if anyone from those days at the factory might chime in with some factual information!
:rolleyes:

Loren

ps: the "factory standard" port list of all the Olson 34 boats turned out to be much easier to diagnose. I corrected it all out be enlarging one larger starb. settee water tank and moving some installed parts out of the port side laz area...
 
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Christian Williams

E381 - Los Angeles
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
Well, chain is 1 to 1.5 pounds a foot, so you could have a windlass and full kit of chain instead of lead.

I'd be bow down like a fishing bobber if I tried that on my boat.
 

Rick R.

Contributing Partner
Get the lead out...

When our boat was surveyed prior to purchase, we discovered lead bars in the port side hull above the settee near the chain plates. We thought they may have been put there by the factory to balance the boat.
 

robjpowell

Member II
Well, chain is 1 to 1.5 pounds a foot, so you could have a windlass and full kit of chain instead of lead.

I'd be bow down like a fishing bobber if I tried that on my boat.


Christian, That is exactly what I am doing. 290lb lead out, replacing it with 40lb windlass, 300' rode (31lb), 90' chain (95lb) (all ~1' in front of where lead was) and a 45lb anchor (~5' forward of lead).
Total out 290lb
Total in ~215lb (incl shackles, thimbles, G10 bracing etc), but placed 1-5' further forward.

Not perfect balance but a h*ll of a lot better than leaving the lead in.

Rob
 

steven

Sustaining Member
just a data point. got a chance to look into the bow storage this weekend and it looks like there is a mound of something covered by hard gray stuff which I guess is resin. I have the rear engine config so it's probably covering the lead ingots others have referred to.
 
Listing Ericson

Hi everyone, Sorry to add to this thread, but I have a very related question. I have purchased 32-2 - 1973. This boat was used for racing at one point in the 1990s (was called "Illusion" CT or MA I think), so it may have been modified. Later, the previous owner replaced the A4 with a Yanmar 2GM20F. Ever since he had done that the boat listed noticeably to starboard. He had 2 battery banks -- One starter battery on a shelf outboard in the starboard lazarette (Not sure that was standard), and the house bank was in a small cupboard in the galley also to Starboard, basically sitting on the floor as you opened the first door on to starboard in the galley.

He has since moved the house bank (2 golf batteries) to port under the quarter berth. That stopped he listing apparently. So now I am trying to add a battery to the house bank - and since everything is already wired in the galley from the previous battery placement, I'm thinking of using that space. But I am afraid the boat will list again... Should I add some lead somewhere to counterbalance it?

Does anyone know where the original battery placement was on the 32-2? Also not sure if the weight of the A4 was so much different than the Yanmar 2gm20 -- maybe it is spread differently over the footprint?

Many thanks for any wisdom...
 

zigzag e35

New Member
no lead in the 78 35-2

I am rocking no leadin the bow but 150 feet of Chain. She displaces about the factory lines. I pulled out original Yanmar raw water nightmare and dropped in an out of box d1-20, literally last week. Saved almost 100lbs from the engine space under the stairs. She always pitches like an exorcism bow to short standers, but everybody does. Filling up the 25g water tank under the v berth also does nothing to change trim. Apparently 11600 but after 35 years I reckon she's closer to 13000.
Zigzag
EHYC
 
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