[Derrick Ardron]

You may recall that I posted an enquiry about bilge pumps and that I turned up at the January 2012 Dinner with photographs of extensive work on Jaunty’s decks and stern. Well all that work may have been necessary without which Jaunty may well have ultimately rotted into oblivion, but the original problem of minor leaks around the keel have if anything got worse, and any serious cruising this year will require one to permanently live in wellies! Alan Staley who has done much of the work, and a professional survey both assure me that the keel structure is sound, but the water isn’t reading the survey and is still leaking in! Talking to the owner of a Huntsman (as appeared in From Russia with Love – my favourite Bond Film – particularly the black band around her throat and one imagines nothing else!), sorry back to reality! Anyway, said Huntsman owner said that he had had the same problem and had put it down to glue failure after 50 years and had stripped the bottom, routed a groove between the two hull halves, filled the groove with epoxy and then glassed the bottom in a strip twelve inches either side of the joint. So I intend following this advice, but don’t want to do it with Jaunty raised but the right way up and epoxy dripping down on me, hence the questions: 1. Is there anyone out there who has rolled their Atalanta hull so as to work on its bottom 2. If so have they written up their experience? Was it in an Annual Bulletin and if so which? If you have done it but not written it up can you give me the benefit of your experience and advice? 3. Does anyone disagree with the proposed process? 4. What does anyone think about the pro’s and con’s of only using epoxy and glass to reinforce the keel joint as opposed to skinning the entire hull? It does seem to me that one cannot go for full encapsulation because of the keel boxes Any and all advice welcome Many thanks Derrick Ardron

Topic

[colin twyford]

Derrick,

Give me a call Tuesday evening if you can to have a chat about the problem.

 

Colin A95

[Dominic Dobson]

I had a similar problem and solved it by removing the wooden capping (sand keel) routed a groove the length of the hull between the 2 halves replaced the keel strip bedded onto sikaflex and screwed in place and then drilled a number of holes internally into the groove and poured epoxy down so that it ran along the length appearing at each hole to make sure that the groove was filled the theory being that the liquid epoxy would find its way into any voids as it ran along the groove if you could pump the epoxy into the area then the extra pressure would make sure that this happened. This process cured many problems however I still had some leakage which was solved the other year by stripping back the hull to wood then checking that any screws were in good order replacing and filling where necessary and then coating in flexible epoxy from reactive resins (discount available to assossiation members) and finally using their copper antifoul.

hope this helps you also need to make sure that there are no obvious areas of delamination which would need a proper repair.

[murray reid]

I am carrying out similar repairs on A87. I did seriously think about rolling the boat on her side for the repairs but opted to block her up to a height where I can work comfortably underneath (as comfortable as one can be working overhead!) as I had to replace some of the hull planking above the waterline as well.  This has been Ok so far but when I am ready for sheathing (I am going to sheath the hull with cloth and epoxy this may displease the purists however it is a necessity here in NZ) – It would be significantly easier to do this with the boat on its side – first one side then the other. I intend constructing three hoops out of timber and plywood, one positioned at the forward bulkhead, one at the companionway bulkhead and one at the aft bulkhead and then roll her over. ….should work!

I am also using cloth and epoxy to strengthen the hull to keel joint by running a strip (about 500mm wide) of triaxial cloth down the centreline and then bonding (with sikaflex so it will be easier to remove if required) a new sand keel on the outside of that.

Murray

[Author]

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