Repairs to the keel

KEEL REPAIRS OH WOW

Due to the hydraulic ram leaking the keel was dropping down onto the trailer. This caused the keel to get a huge 20inch x 2 inch chunk to get carved out of the leading edge. When the keel was pumped up the missing chunk was not visible as it was hidden up inside the hull.

 It became more and more apparent that something was wrong as the boat was not pointing very well and then the boys at the yard reported that she was hard to get off the trailer.

The keel seeping down was faily slow so when the boat was trailered all was ok abut after sitting for a week the keel was creeping down.
I asked to yard to use the lift to take the boat off the trailer and place it on a cradle. $350 later it was sitting on the cradle. The keel came down and oops there was the hole.
I was worried about my capability to be able to fibreglass it back up.

Yaringa Marina Rocks

I dropped into yaringa marina where I met with the lady who runs the local chandlery. Her husband runs the local fibreglass factory and she sent me around to see him.

What a great visit. I showed him photos and we spent an hour discussing and drawing pictures . He gave me all the info I needed then sent me back to the chandlery with a list of the stuff I needed such as the west system epoxy . He also sold me some biradial cloth that works so well. $200 worth of goods and I was off.

Now for the hard bit

I ground the damaged area back with an angle grinder and faired it back to a good 12 to 1 slope.

I placed a couple of pieces of hardwood into the hole and then filled around those with car filler epoxy that had fibreglass filaments in it. The job swollowed a full kilo of the filler. Two days later I placed a piece of brass 1/4 round that was 2 inches wide and the same length of the hole this was screwed into place with stainless screws. More grinding  to get it ready for the glass.

The west system I purchased had the pumps so mixing was a breeze. Ended up with 11 layers of glass and one layer of epoxy With powder mixed. The next job was to grind and sand the leading edge to get it back to the right shape and smoothness.



After that was done some of the yard guys came over to have a look and pronounced the job to be very strong and well shaped. Whew what a relief  my first fibreglass job and it passed the hardest test of all the boys from the yard.



Next was a light sand and 2coats of paint to get it all ready to put back in to the water.

During this process i took the pump to the local hydraulic man and he tested it only to find the problem was only partly the pump with most of the problem being the ram.

To get the ram out of a Binks 25 you would need to take to it with a chainsaw as the ram ends are buried in the hull with many layers of glass.

Thinking time and also net research.  The answer was reasonably simple. one $80 small trailer inch was fitted inside the hull with a double wire cable passing thru a 1/2 inch hole at the top of the cavity where the end of the bulb finishes up the hull. a 1 x 1/4 inch brass strip was bolted on to end of the bulb to attach the wire.

Now pump 10 times wind 4 turns pump 10 times wind 4 turns and pump 3 times and wind 2 times. Lock the winch and the keel cannot seep down ever again.

One has to be inventive when the boat is 30 plus years old and money does not grow on trees


I went out the following day for a test sail and wow what a difference. Not only did Chinook point very well but the increase in speed was fantastic. When I first got the boat. The best speed I ever saw was 5.2 knots. Even with a light wind I saw 7,6 knots on the gps at slack tide.

The day of the test sail I noticed that the poor old Johnson 8 hp sailmaster was not pumping water too well so I purchase a new water pump kit and then the drama started. Pulled off the lower unit and it came of easily however the shaft was stuck in the power head. Much pulling , banging and sweat later I took it to the local marine shop and after a couple of days got the bad news.

The motor was 1984 and had been on the boat all of that time. The lower unit had water in it. The shaft was welded into the power head and the electrics were all but worn out and at $120 per hour plus parts the job would have cost over $1500. All that money for a nearly 30 year old motor. . No way.



$2250 later the boat now has a nice new shiny 8 hp mercury on the back that is lighter and after having run it for around 2 hours it had to my astonishment used around 2.5 liters of fuel at 1/2 throttle. The old motor was using a tank of 20 liters in around 2 1/2 hours. Boy oh boy I'm happy now