Tyler Donley
Junior Member
Hi All,
I have a '78 Ericson 27 and when I hauled out two years ago (it's been on hard ever since) I noticed some dripping coming out of the lower portion of the keel. Upon further inspection there was indeed a small crack along the bottom so I drilled a couple holes and let it drain. Well over the years when it would rain some water would end up in the bilge (a different problem in itself) and I noticed that when there was water in the bilge the drips would return on the bottom of the keel. I collected some of the dripped water and it smells like bilge water so I think it's safe to say I have a leak through my keel up to the bilge.
I was in the bilge today and trying to clean it up as best I could. I was told the P.O. had put fiberglass in the bilge to seal it up - when I look at it I don't see much fiberglass is looks like there's a layer of epoxy that was poured into the bottom. When I pressed on the edges of the epoxy layer I could see bilge water get forced up and out of the edges of it, so the "layer of epoxy" is obviously not doing it's job.
I just can't seem to think of any way to get down there to fix the problem. My arms don't reach down there - the crazy thought I had was to cut an access hole in the side of the keel to be able to grind/sand away what's needed to do a proper repair.
Anybody else have any thoughts? Attached is a photo, but it's hard to see the cracks along the edges.
Thanks,
Tyler
I have a '78 Ericson 27 and when I hauled out two years ago (it's been on hard ever since) I noticed some dripping coming out of the lower portion of the keel. Upon further inspection there was indeed a small crack along the bottom so I drilled a couple holes and let it drain. Well over the years when it would rain some water would end up in the bilge (a different problem in itself) and I noticed that when there was water in the bilge the drips would return on the bottom of the keel. I collected some of the dripped water and it smells like bilge water so I think it's safe to say I have a leak through my keel up to the bilge.
I was in the bilge today and trying to clean it up as best I could. I was told the P.O. had put fiberglass in the bilge to seal it up - when I look at it I don't see much fiberglass is looks like there's a layer of epoxy that was poured into the bottom. When I pressed on the edges of the epoxy layer I could see bilge water get forced up and out of the edges of it, so the "layer of epoxy" is obviously not doing it's job.
I just can't seem to think of any way to get down there to fix the problem. My arms don't reach down there - the crazy thought I had was to cut an access hole in the side of the keel to be able to grind/sand away what's needed to do a proper repair.
Anybody else have any thoughts? Attached is a photo, but it's hard to see the cracks along the edges.
Thanks,
Tyler
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