E39 Crack on hull centerline

[gadangit]

We have a crack on the keel along the centerline where the two halves were joined in a secondary bond. I know this has been a topic covered before and I have a fuzzy recall of one instance of a E39 having a similar split.

I have pretty much seen every square inch of hull on the inside and I've not seen any evidence of a crack from the inside. My guess is that the crack is in the filler and not in the actual glass, but we shall see. The crack really runs the length of the seam as you can see from the other picture. But there is old paint in there and it looks like it has been there for a while. The worst of the crack is in the left picture below on the leading edge of the keel. The right picture is looking straight up at the forefoot area.

I had a quick haul in October and I didn't see this, nor do I see any evidence in the pictures I took. We did have a tough regatta in November with 25-35kt winds which might have flexed the hull. It's the only thing that I can think of that may have caused the crack to form.

We'll grind it out and see what we find. Hopefully we can just clean it up and repair with a good fiberglass layup.

Wish me luck!

Chris

 

[Shelman]

Thanks for the post and pictures. Should be a pretty straightforward repair, good to catch it early, keep us posted on how it goes and what you find. I have seen pictures of other of the larger Ericson models having similar issues but none seemed like an overly complicated repair. Although I saw pictures and read about one in the Caribbean that almost sank due to the crack down the center line coming open during a crossing. I wonder if anybody knows how many of the other Ericson models were built in two halves. I have scratched my head many times looking at the deep narrow keel on my E-26 wondering how the keel was made and attached to the hull. In halves and then glassed together like yours? My hull seems to have been laid up in one piece but I don't think the keel could have been laid up at the same time all in one piece. Maybe it was made in a separate mold and then attached? The e-26 is internal ballast so its not bolted on like many others. Surely it couldn't have been made all in one piece, how would they have laid cloth down at the bottom, with a broomstick? And what else is down in that keel with the lead ingot? Solid resin? Who knows? Not me.

 

[Emerald]

since no one else is jumping in, I'll take a stab at this one. I had something similar some years ago, but on a much smaller scale - a few feet and not as deep looking. I was fortunate enough to be able to exchange some emails with Bruce King (bkyd.com was still online at this time). From my memory, the two halves had a mix of resin and fibers, often asbestos based, lathered up on the faces of the joint. This would form a bond on the edge, but then the real strength came from multiple layers of heavy roving laid up on the interior of the joint. The leading edge of this joint, which you are looking at in your pictures, was actually filled/faired with non-structural stuff. Take something like a wire wheel on an angle grinder and carefully clean it out and fill it back up with a nice peanut butter type mixture of West System and 406 and fair it back and you should be fine. Of course, do thoroughly inspect the interior, but unless something quite unexpected is going on, I think you're looking at basically filler that needs to be redone. And yes, it's a plastic boat, so it does all flex and work over time....

btw, I've never had any sign of a return crack on my repair

 

[gadangit]

Thanks for the info on how the boat was put together. The one piece that I saw chipped out matched what you described.

The shop who did the work ground out the crack and fixed it up just fine. He said it really wasn't as deep as it appeared. He put some heat on it for an afternoon to drive out any remaining water and did a few layups with biax cloth. Faired it out and called it a day. He is a much better fiberglasser than I will ever be and I think it is going to be fine.

I am very glad we caught it when we did, such is life with a 44 year old boat!

Sorry for the dark picture, but the interesting (coincidental?) thing is the mast sits right on top of where the crack opened up.

We missed the first icicle race, but I did get some time to re-pitch my maxiprop and re-grease. Amazing little pieces of machined bronze those things are.

Chris

 

[Shelman]

Good to hear it was a straightforward fix. nice wax job too.

 

[Christian Williams]

Fill light added.