encapsulated keel?

[George DuBose]

A young man in our boatyard is renovating a P30 #488.

Apparently, his keel is encapsulated and part of the fiberglass was delaminated from the metal (lead???) keel.

He says he has no keel bolts in his bilge.

My P26 has keel bolts and a cast iron keel, my P36 has keel bolts and a lead keel.

There also seems to be a void on both sides of the keel up near the hull. There definitely is a "hollow" sound when tapped on.

What's up? No keel bolts?

George

[Bob Maxwell]

Correct on no keel bolts.  Also correct there are areas that sound a bit hollow higher on the keel.  Normal for a P30. The cause of the delamination should be established and any entrained water drained out before repair.  Once it's dry and repaired, is should be reasonably trouble free as long as grounding on hard surfaces is avoided.

Bob

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[Jeff Griglack]

If he is worried about the voids, he could drill holes in the keel and fill with epoxy or polyurethane.  Also, if he doesn't know this already, tell him to be careful about blocking the keel because there is no lead in aft portion.  The aft portion (about a foot maybe) of the keel was added after the boat was removed from the mold and is not strong enough to support the keel.

One of the things that I like about the P30 (and, in fact, the P365) is the encapsulated keel.  No keel bolts to tighten.  No chance of a "smile" developing.  No worries about rust like some boats with cast iron keels.

------------------------------------------------------------------
| Jeff Griglack                  "Blithe Spirit" P-30 #182

|                                   "Jabberwocky" P-365 #269
------------------------------------------------------------------
| "Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent"
|                   - Walt Kelly
| 'Years ago my mother used to say to me, she'd say, "In this
| world, Elwood, you must be" – she always called me Elwood –
| "In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant."
| Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.'
|               —James Stewart as Elwood P. Dowd
------------------------------------------------------------------

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pearson-boats/CAK8p_9MdXBQyS4qESauL1inL2S%2BbmeGxFQs4x%2BY724mpxEc1DQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Jeff Griglack]

Whoops, I meant to say  that the aft portion is not strong enough to support the boat, not the keel.

------------------------------------------------------------------
| Jeff Griglack                  "Blithe Spirit" P-30 #182

|                                   "Jabberwocky" P-365 #269
------------------------------------------------------------------
| "Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent"
|                   - Walt Kelly
| 'Years ago my mother used to say to me, she'd say, "In this
| world, Elwood, you must be" – she always called me Elwood –
| "In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant."
| Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.'
|               —James Stewart as Elwood P. Dowd
------------------------------------------------------------------

[Bill Robart]

My P-33-1 had an encapsulated lead keel. The hull is laid up and then the lead ballast is added in a big chunk.  They try to fill all the voids between the lead and the hull but being a production boat the job wasn't done to perfection and voids were the result. That shouldn't be a problem if the top of lead is carefully covered with a few layers of fiberglass and the keel isn't breached from a grounding or collision of some sort. My 33 had a couple of spots where it sounded hollow but there was never any sign of a problem.  The only time water in the hollow spots could be a problem is during the winter when the water could freeze causing some delamination around the wet hollow spot.  

I'm curious as to how anyone would discover that a void had filled with water unless there was a visible crack someplace showing a leak. 

Bill

On Tue, Aug 6, 2019 at 6:44 PM George DuBose <bo...@george-dubose.com> wrote:

[Jeff Griglack]

I imagine you could tell that there was a void that had filled with water when you pull the boat out of the water and see water leaking from the keel.  Also, any crack will open up larger, in northern climates, when the water freezes and opens up the crack larger.

------------------------------------------------------------------
| Jeff Griglack                  "Blithe Spirit" P-30 #182

|                                   "Jabberwocky" P-365 #269
------------------------------------------------------------------
| "Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent"
|                   - Walt Kelly
| 'Years ago my mother used to say to me, she'd say, "In this
| world, Elwood, you must be" – she always called me Elwood –
| "In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant."
| Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.'
|               —James Stewart as Elwood P. Dowd
------------------------------------------------------------------

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pearson-boats/CAFqcws7VT2P3ehUpYT4%2B%3DGNs8VE69WuPhU13sjCPU5LoisOEPw%40mail.gmail.com.

[Jesse Tane]

The young man (yours truly) finally has posting privileges and wants to say thanks for everyone's advice here. It was relayed back to me at the time and was useful in solving the mystery. Bill pretty much nailed it, the voids weren't the issue so much as the series of holes in the bilge (in the ballast "cap") and on the bottom of the keel (yep, grounding damage - I blame the PO!).

The keel had been dripping for weeks, this is what led me to the discovery of the voids initially. It wasn't drying out because I had been using the ice box, which was generating melt water that flowed into the bilge, through the ballast cap and on down through the keel. I ended up using an air compressor to gently pressurize the voids and locate all the holes. After marking them it was simply a matter of glassing everything up to make a good seal. I left the voids hollow, no problems with them since, but I'll post an update here if anything changes.

Photos of the keel, bilge, compressor rig etc are all in here somewhere:

https://jessetane.com/isotope/refit-summer-2019

[Jesse Tane]

Cross linking to this post "Exploratory Surgery on My Salvage Boat Keel 1976 Pearson 30" by Tim Smith which may be useful to anyone who ends up here from a search.