O'day 302 lost keel

[deniseO30]

If only I had keel bolts! or knew where/how they attached! everyone say: "don't worry bout it! encapsulated keels are stronger then the hull..."

there are 2 or 3 really heavy stringers that cross the bilge in my boat. Tapping on the them they sound very very solid.

[Maine Sail]

Originally Posted by sailhog

John,
Thanks for the post.

Has anyone heard of any C30s losing their keels due to crevice corrosion?

No but I was about one season away and was very lucky I caught it. All the bolts that went through the plywood were about the diameter of 1/4X20 bolt. Very, very scary.

[GaryHLucas]

I just spent the past 4 days wearing a tyvek suit grinding out the bottom of my Etap 26 retractable keel boat. The entire keel trunk was heading south. It had already moved about 1". A very simple case of TCDA (Terminal Case of Dumb Ass) The idiot that designed this boat should have been hung! Today I started glassing in the repairs.

Boats with bad keels seem attracted to me. The 1976 Hunter 27 I owned in 1982 also had the keel nearly fall off. The pictures of the Oday are very reminesent, except the TCDA of that Hunter design was right off the charts! I had to cut the entire floor out of hte boat to get to the repair area. 3 five gallon buckets later I had a clean hull and started rebuilding the stringers from scratch. I sold the boat to a guy who sailed it from NJ and back 3 times. he called me 8 years later to tell me the bilge had water fro the first time. It turned out the rubber conveyor belt I used under large stainless plates to protect the glass had dry rotted. He replaced that and the boat was completely dry again.

I am very surprised that you don't hear more about keel design flaws from surveyors. There are a hee lof a lot of boats out there with really bad engineering on the keel supports.

I will post some before and after pictures of the repair job I am doing now.

Gary H. Lucas

[empaynejr]

This thread is very interesting...and informative. I have a few things I am going to watch more closely.

[denby]

Up date: hauled my 1988 O'day 302 boat a few weeks ago, as it was on the travel lift the operator noticed a little drooping and wobble of the keel. Sailingdog and I cleaned the bilge and checked the bolts, saw nothing wrong in the bilge. Dawg was there when they lifted the boat off the keel, but do to the mast still stepped they only lifted it a few inches. the only thing Dawg saw was a bad bedding job, the 3M 5200 did not adhere to the boat or lead, bolts looked ok at lead. The po had a problem a with the back bolt 7 years ago and had it replaced.
A few questions,
1, does anyone know for sure if there is a core in the hull construction at the keel joint on this boat?
2, should I drill down from the top with a 3/4in hole saw between 2 bolts to see what is down there?
MaineSail and others, your advise is greatly appreciated.

[blt2ski]

Dennis,

Have you looked at the I Heart O'Days site to see if any info is there? I hope it is .com, might be .org!

Marty

[denby]

Originally Posted by blt2ski

Dennis,

Have you looked at the I Heart O'Days site to see if any info is there? I hope it is .com, might be .org!

Marty

Just now checking it out, thanks. I'll let you know.

[GaryHLucas]

What does the glas look like in the bilge? On my Hunter 27 it looked 'Dry' like it had very little resin in it. It turned out the resin had been crushed leaving flexible fibers.

What do the washers under the nuts look like? If they are cupped from the load then they have been crushing the resin out of the glass under the washer. I wound up reglassing the whole area with another 3/4" of epoxy and woven roving. I then added the much larger stainless plates under the washers.

Gary H. Lucas

[sailingdog]

The glass looks fine, not starved of resin... and the washers aren't cupped. There's also no stress cracking in the bilge or on the bottom of the keel stub that I was able to see. It was unusual to see the 5200 let go of most of the surface area without a fight...

[US27inKS]

Originally Posted by sailingdog

The glass looks fine, not starved of resin... and the washers aren't cupped. There's also no stress cracking in the bilge or on the bottom of the keel stub that I was able to see. It was unusual to see the 5200 let go of most of the surface area without a fight...

Denby said the lift operator noticed a little droop and wobble from the keel. Were the bolts loose? I would think that if the bolts were tight, the only indication that there was a problem with the 5200 would be a leak, wouldn't it? If the keel were truly loose and wobbly, wouldn't there be a substantial leak?

Denby - I don't think it would hurt to take a "core sample" from the stub to see what's in there and how well the layup is holding up. The boat that I posted pics of obviously had serious problems with delamination of the stub. If I were you, I would want to be sure.