1974 DuFour 35 Sloop Keel split

[MistralCapt]

June 30th I stopped at marina in Mystic, Connecticut to check on my DuFour 35 which has been sitting uncovered in the yard since fall of 2003. A few months ago I noticed a small rust stain at the bottom of the keel trailing edge. To my horror the stain was much larger and the vertical trailing edge had a 2 ft long 1/4 inch wide gap. I found a blown fuse on the bilge pump and removed 12 to 15 buckets of water. There was 3 or 4 inches of room left before the water would flood the cabin deck. This has always been a dry boat but I guess all boats leak and the winter-spring rains were biblical. Some how the bilge water must have gotten into the keel and froze resulting in the fiberglass splitting. Does anyone know of a cheap fix? I'm sure the fiberglass repair shop would be happy to fix it for a large price. I had worked on my O'Day 27 keel using West Systems Products. That keel was lead....With my rust stains I must have some sort of iron keel. I have not looked into the split to see whats inside. A friend suggested that I cut open a section so that Naval Jelly could be put on the rusting metal and once cleaned and dry to try injecting some sort of epoxy filler to fill the void. I'm sure the local repair shop would cut away vast sections of the keel and do what they must to once again replace it. If anyone has any information please post an answer. Thanks in advance ---- "There is always a glitch"

[hellosailor]

Mistral-
Since it is the keel, I would not try to just get by with a patch. It sounds like you have an iron keel (I call them all scrap iron, nothing personal) and there are various ways they are fitted into fiberglass shells. Dunno what you have, it may have been lowered into place, with epoxy surrounding it, and simply "glued" in. Or there may be structural attachments at the top of it.

What do you have there?

If you have no voids and the space around the iron was totally filled...rust wouldn't be a problem once the voids were dried out and then refilled and resealed, it would stop once you dried the keel out. Which could be done, say, by temporarily plugging the crack with clay or wax and then pouring isopropanol into the voids to pull out the water, which would evaporate/drain out with the alcohol once you pulled the seal off.

At that point, I'd let it air dry well, and if there was no structural problem--treat it as a fiberglass crack repair, not just gluing it up but cutting back and laying on some new glass. (The folks at West Systems aka Gougeon Bros. have free tech support if you call them, and lots of docs on their web site.) And when the glass was sealed again, making Real Damn Sure to refill any voids with something, preferably epoxy, but even bees wax would ensure they were filled and water couldn't get into them again.

[sailingdog]

Leaving a boat uncovered for for four New England winters is a good way to get lots of damage like that... Can I ask why you didn't at least shrink wrap the boat?

There isn't any inexpensive way to repair this... you're going to have to dig out the rust, rebuild the laminate after sealing the iron keel with epoxy or some other sort of coating, and then re-fair the keel. This is not an inexpensive repair, even if you are capable and willing to do all of the work yourself.

[MistralCapt]

Kudos & many thanks to hellosailor and sailing dog for the quick reply and useful information. I have a local boating friend that has some connections with a yacht builder and has requested information on my behalf. We do have an excellent Fiberglass repair shop at the marina and will be my next stop after all the other suggestions are received. The previous owner had considered keel reduction so he could take it to Naples, Florida (shallow water) they did purchase a shoal draft boat when they moved. During the time they owned the DuFour they never covered or shrink wrapped it. I did put some small blue tarps over the companion way and cockpit areas. I did not intend to keep it in long term storage for long (I also had an O'Day 27 at another marina) Hindsight tells me that shrinkwrap would have been the better option. Again thanks for the input and have a great summer. Gary

[sailingdog]

Good luck Gary... and let us know how it goes.