Leaking Keel Bolt

[Terry Rushing]

I have a 2007 Beneteau 373.  I have developed a leak around a keel bolt plate.  Has anyone had this experience and what is the fix.  I am thinking the keel has to be dropped and the bottom under the keel cleaned and inspected and then put back up and sealed at the joint between the keel and the boat.  I had heard of some Tartens having this problem and I heard it was $40,000.  Obviously hoping that is not the case. 

Terry Rushing

Fear Knot

[Mohammad Bayegan]

Did you run a ground.

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From: 'Terry Rushing' via Beneteau Owners <benetea...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 7, 2021 11:47:21 AM
To: Beneteau Owners <benetea...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: {Beneteau Owners} Leaking Keel Bolt

 

I have a 2007 Beneteau 373.  I have developed a leak around a keel bolt plate.  Has anyone had this experience and what is the fix.  I am thinking the keel has to be dropped and the bottom under the keel cleaned and inspected and then put back up and sealed at the joint between the keel and the boat.  I had heard of some Tartens having this problem and I heard it was $40,000.  Obviously hoping that is not the case. 

Terry Rushing

Fear Knot

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[Hal Mueller]

There’s a receipt in the file for my Beneteau 323 for a similar repair by prior owner (who had it in charter). There had been a grounding. Fix was to drop the keel, repair the lattice interior hull, and reattach the keel, torquing the bolts to factory spec. I think the total was about $9,000.

Hal

[Ben Durant]

Terry, I had this problem with an Ericson.  The estimate to drop and rebed the keel was $10K on a 35' boat.  My yard wasn't cheap but to be fair they had to build a structure within my cradle to support the keel on port and starboard.  I never did go that route and drop the keel,  btw.  I tightened the keel bolts and addressed the keel smile on the exterior with some flexible epoxy.  I was prepared to drop and rebed, but my delay tactic worked and solved the problem solved. I'd be more careful than that with a Bene.  Was there a grounding?   Answering that question is huge and could perhaps make this insurance issue if there was an incident involved.

Please let us know how this works out.  

[Hal Mueller]

It might also mean that there’s hidden hull damage, beyond the leaking bolt.

Hal

[Terry Rushing]

Hal,

$9,000 sounds a whole lot better than $40,000. 

The mystery to me is I haven't gone aground for several years and even that was a soft grounding

Thanks for the info

Terry

On Wednesday, April 7, 2021, 1:39:03 PM EDT, Hal Mueller <halmu...@gmail.com> wrote:

There’s a receipt in the file for my Beneteau 323 for a similar repair by prior owner (who had it in charter). There had been a grounding. Fix was to drop the keel, repair the lattice interior hull, and reattach the keel, torquing the bolts to factory spec. I think the total was about $9,000.

Hal

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[Terry Rushing]

I did not go a ground that why it is so strange

Terry

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[Terry Rushing]

Weren't you concerned about salt water getting between the boat and keel and remaining  with this approach.  There was no grounding

Terry

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[Terry Rushing]

Hal,

Since there was no grounding, I do think I will pursue dropping the keel and doing an inspection to see what I am really up against.

Thanks

Terry

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[Johnny Pool]

You can do yourself or with the help of someone that’s handy ,you are right in saying drop the keel that’s the only permanent fix ,research the sealant to be used ,I did it on a Bavaria 44 luckily the keel dropped without any fuss ,

Some boatyards quote high price because they don’t want the job 

Johnny Pool

On 8 Apr 2021, at 02:47, 'Terry Rushing' via Beneteau Owners <benetea...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



I have a 2007 Beneteau 373.  I have developed a leak around a keel bolt plate.  Has anyone had this experience and what is the fix.  I am thinking the keel has to be dropped and the bottom under the keel cleaned and inspected and then put back up and sealed at the joint between the keel and the boat.  I had heard of some Tartens having this problem and I heard it was $40,000.  Obviously hoping that is not the case. 

Terry Rushing

Fear Knot

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[slam.1956]

I had the same thing happen on my 2010 birthday. 2 weeks after I bought.  We had sailed home over 1000nm heading into the wind along the way and I felt that the hammering the boat got was  more action than she had seen fur many year's. Theyard said that the initial seal had breached because it had been done poorly initially. Dropped the keel, rebed, also removed the mast while the keel was off for safety. 12,000 all up.

[s/v Lucky Spin]

Sorry for the late response and sorry to hear of your keel bolt issue too, but... Why not find out how bad the leak is first before imagining the worst?  

Which keel bolt is it?  Is the water rusty?  Do we assume it is salt water? Let's do some more investigation first.

I know it sounds obvious, and I'm sure you've tasted that it's salt water.  But with a grid system like our Benny's use, the rare fresh water leak just might find its way into anything down there, like maybe inside the sealed grid down to the bilge and slowly leak out near the square bolt washer? In fact a couple of my keel bolts are actually bolted thru the grid's lip that is bonded to the hull.  So with that out of the way (Ok, it's salt)...  "IF" it is fresh let me know if you have those pesky leaky integral fresh water tanks like I have on my 473 -- BOTH of mine leak fresh water into the bilge!  (I've been putting off cutting one open to have a look).

IF it is the forward keel bolt or the aft most keel bolt it might mean at some point in time the keel hit something, but not so much as to effect all the bolts or maybe not enough to damage the grid.  If it's a middle keel bolt, my bet is it's a flaw in the bedding process during assembly.  I'd pull the offending keel bolt first to get an idea whether the leak is a gusher, or a simple weeping.  Also look to see if there is even slight crevice pitting of the stainless bolt caused over time from oxygen starvation and the salt water.  That might give you a clue how long this has been going on.  

If it is simply weeping, I'd dry out the hole as best as possible and using some easy to remove bedding compound (that cures underwater, like BoatLife), put a heavy dab over the leak and the bolt in the same area, and re-torque the keel bolt -- buying you some time for the next haul out -- but we're not taking years here -- okay?  (check the torque on the rest of the bolts as long as you've got your hands on that huge torque wrench).  Also, I would do a serious and very close up inspection of the grid frame under the floorboards that is bonded to your hull -- even looking for the most minute hairline cracks along the hull to grid joints. You can get to a lot of the grid's bonded area around the keel but not all of it up the sides -- I tend to think less important up the sides anyway.  If here are ANY hairline cracks this becomes a whole new issue.

If it turns out to be a gusher have a small tube of BoatLIfe ready, apply a bead around the bolt and put it back in.  This will need to be addressed with a haul out.  It could be anything from a serious flaw in the cast iron to a crack or somehow a flaw in the hulls fiberglass keel stub -- or even something minor that isn't even visible and might be solved just by grinding the "smile" line a wee bit deeper around the keel stub and laying in a heavy bead of 5200 .  This may be the result of something as simple as not enough bedding used in that top area of the keel when the keel was first attached.

MAYBE SOMETHING ELSE BEFORE YOU PUT THAT BOLT BACK IN?  SOME MAY LAUGH:

This last trick I have never used.  But here it is.  While I had the keel bolt out, I'd get a pipe fitting with a hose barb on it (with tapered pipe threads) that was sized so it would cut its own threads into the fiberglass keel bolt hole but not so oversize as to damage the the glass -- just a nice tight fit so the threads did not go below the keel to hull joint.  (We are going to be testing that hull to keel "seam").  So I'd thread the pipe fitting into the hole very tight and connecting my bicycle pump with a hose barb adaptor I'd pump 30 or 40 PSI of air into the hole, while my dear friend Luis, who owns an excellent dive service, would be swimming around the keel stub with his GoPro making a video of where the air bubbles were coming out.  Pretty funny huh?  Don't laugh...  Also note:  If you can push air out that hole in the keel stub?  You just might be able to push, or better a term -- inject -- some thinned epoxy out that hole too, which your diver could also verify.  

At any rate I would do some easy investigating topside before heading to the boat yard and dropping 4 digits of cash on any haul out or keel dropping.  And a little investigation will only cost you the rental of that monstrous torque wrench and socket which maybe the boat yard might loan you anyway.  Plus the cost of some BoatLife, a pipe fitting, and your local dive service to at least 'see' where the water is coming in.

However this ends up, good luck to you and please let us all know how it goes

Martin

s/v Lucky Spin

2006  B473

[Terry Rushing]

Martin,

  I emptied the bilge of all the water and only tasted it at the end and I thought it tasted salty.  That, plus seeing water around the back most keel bolt had me thinking the worst.  Having had so much water in the bilge (approx 15 gallons) I plugged the hole in the grid near the questionable keel bolt and was still getting water around the keel bolt plate. I was getting about 1/3 of a gallon everyday for three days in a row.   As it turned out the plug was not effective and the water was indeed coming from the grid and not from the keel bolt.  So having determined I did not have an active leak, I turned my attention to where the water came from. 

We had company visiting and we were out of beds in the house, so my wife and I slept on the boat for three weeks.  During that time the AC was running all the time.  The condensate from the AC drains into the bilge and a siphon removes it.  The strainer was plugged and so the condensate collected. 

Having never had water like that in the bilge and seeing the water around the keel bolt I panicked a bit. We were planning a trip to the Dry Tortugas and thought that was at risk.  We are back to planning the trip instead of addressing a leaky keel bolt.

Thanks

Terry Rushing

Fear Knot

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