mystery drip

[DavidSpaulding]

I recently purchased a Commander that had been out of the water for a couple of years. It was delivered a week ago and has been sitting in my driveway while I get her ready for launch. Ever since the boat arrived there has been a steady drip of water -- about one drop every 20 seconds -- from the keel.

Until just recently there had been a lot of rain here in the northeast the last few weeks. I know some rain got in while the previous owner was working on her. The survey mentioned nothing of a drip from the keel.

Any guesses?

Thanks in advance,

David Spaulding
Ceili, Commander 256
Windham, Maine

[marymandara]

the aft section of the commander's keel has some foam in it which is glassed over from inside. if the leak is back there, drill a little hole until it dries ou, overglass and/or barrier coat inside the bilge sump, and you're good to go.

if the drip is forward, you have water in the ballast cavity. this is not uncommon with an internally ballasted boat...commander #280 dripped/wept some at the forefoot when wayne and toby hauled her earlier this season. my triton was holding a good couple gallons...the boats were production built and in a hurry, right? so, the overglassing of the ballast pig is leaking somewhere. I drilled a hole and let it all run out...when the bilge gets rainwater in it (boat is disassembled in the yard), water drips out! now, here's the deal with that: the ballast pig is wedged in place with scrap balsa. ever seen rotten balsa? like rotten tuna fish salad! a friend's renegade had a keel that went "clunk" in the night. he drilled holes thru the overglassing material into the gap between the pig and hull and poured in about 9 gallons of resin a little at a time and in multiple innings...you sure wouldn't want to do it all at once--can you say fire? i saw another way of doing it on the net somewhere wherein the fellow holesawed a bunch of holes from outside and filled the gap with blowfoam. problem is, most all foams do not like water that well long term!

The advice i got was that the resin in there, unreinforced, is not too strong either and is crumbly. the best suggestion i got was from someone whose opinion is generally well-regarded in the triton community, which was to grind off the overglassing of the joint, pack in a bunch of scrap 'glass material, and THEN pour the resin. to do this, you will need to remove the cabin sole. if only a small amount of water comes out of the forefoot, i would be moved myself to let it drain, drill a couple holes in the overglassing in strategic places and dump a few gallons of acetone in there with the hole below plugged, then let it all dump out to try and dry things as best you can. plug up the holes well, glass and/or barrier coat inside the bilge, and go sailing.
i haven't got to that part of my triton, but i will be taking photos when i do and will make them available.

best,
dave

[ebb]

taste it.
what part of keel? front - back - or bottom?
is there a water trail?
former owner might have crunched it. scrape back suspected spot to expose gelcoat. find what kind of leak it is!

if from bottom of keel could be from encapsulated lead area.

[well, Dave got in here with some good points while I was cogitating. I do think you Have to locate the leak befor anything! It could be said that every Commander and Ariel has water in it, in the keel cavity, in the laminate. There are a couple of radical cures: 338 injected more than 5 gallons of epoxy in thru drilled holes outside without removal of the sole.

IMCO you can find and repair the leak and sail another decade if its daysailing you're into.

Press SEARCH button up top here for a lot more on this subject. Some wag even installed a bottom of the keel drain plug to use when he put the boat up for the winter. Wouldn't every encapsulated keel where there are freezing winters have this ability?]

[DavidSpaulding]

Thanks for the advice.

The leak seems to be coming from front of the bottom of the keel.

I confess I am somewhat easily overwhelmed , and the thought of d-d-drilling holes in the b-b-boat below the waterline does it to me everytime. But I have a luanch date Monday the 30th. If I drill a hole to expedite the drainage, let it go as much as it will for a day or two, then glass over the hole, would i be good to go? Is this the sort of job I could put off until the next haul out?

David Spaulding
Ceili, Commander 256
Windham, Maine

[ebb]

This my opinion only.
Wouldn't one assume that what is coming out of the hull is going to come back in?

If you have damage or a serious weep, grind it back clean and patch it with some of that vinylester cathair Mike uses. Or a similar epoxy goop.

Try to find out why it is leaking. Really. Maybe dreaded former owner hit a rock. Gelcoat would show star crazing. See if there is bottom paint in cracks - might be old wound. Any disruption or dent I would consider dangerous. Get a second eye-on opinion.

If it is straight forward maybe some other Commander owner can advise on whether such a patch is good enough for the season.

When you pull the boat in the fall, then you can drill the hole in the bottom (per the Manual) and let it drain. You will hopefully by then know how much you are taking on. Put in a drain plug and consider it a nuisance. May be time to take all bottom off down to gelcoat for full accessment of condition. My surveyor, when I bought the boat, was blind and very interested in cosmetics and making lists of obsolete equipment. Of course problems can be covered up.

Get a reliable automatic bilge pump.

[Bill]

The "water in the keel" subject is extensively discussed in the manual. Putting the boat back in the water for the season without doing anything should not be a problem. The fix, however, is time consuming and invloves drilling holes to drain the excess water, letting the fiberglass matt dry before applying an epoxy barrier coat to the hull and sealing the bilge.

If you haul annually, you can start the process this fall. If you don't (like here on the West Coast), then you will need to decide when you can afford to leave the boat on the hard for three or more months.

[commanderpete]

Another vote for letting it go until next haulout.

Try to keep the bilge dry.

Here is my little wet spot, just about in the middle of the keel.

I'm not too worried about it.

[Theis]

Remember the major weight of the boat, the balance point, is at the bulb at the forward end of the keel. Whenever the boat is laid up, virtually all the weight of the boat is balanced on this point, so it is almost inevitable that it will crack, just from the weight, and ultimatelly leak.

Also, if the boat went aground (and in this part of the world, that is necessary part of the sport - if you really cruise), that could also cut a hole or cause a leak, right at that bulb.

If the boat is put up for the winter in a freezing clime, the moisture/water in the bulb will likely cause it to crack eventually.

So there is water. Who cares, as long as it drains before freezeup?

On #82, I had it laid on its side and found there was a major hole in the bulb. I ground out all the rotten glass & mat - to the length of about 3 feet, and laid it up again. About half way back, just above where the bottom of the keel rounds towards the bottom, I mounted a permanent drain plug, to drain the water in the winter. However, before mounting the drain plug, I put in a couple gallons of resin to hold one side of the lead. That way, I figured, the lead could expand and contract without breaking the figerglass shell ( I hope that is clear). It should be noted that the hole, crack, whatever is never visible when the boat is resting on a stand, trailer or whatever, because the plank or whatever the boat rests on covers the area of the hole.

I also coated the inside of the bilge with several coats of Gluvit, so I don't think I get any water from the top.

So now, three years later, I still get water in the keel well. Who cares. I have no idea where it comes from, but in all liklihood, it is from something in the bottom of the bulb. (I can only see some discoloration when the boat is being lifted to be put in the water).

[ebb]

Gee, David, if you wants to know all this stuff, I guess you can read it and forget it. Capt Theiss reminds me that 338 had a 'huge' divit (about vertical under the aft window in the Ariel) on the very bottom of the keel that was revealed when the hull was stripped.

A piece about the size of an abalone shell or half a football made up of opaque and crystal polyester was pried out of the depression to expose roving. Theorized that while they had made the turn of the bilge ok when they were hand laying up the hull, they had not pressed the fabric down into the mold at this spot, so after the hull was popped out they (Pearson) faired around the polyester that had imperfectly fallen thru the fabric into the mold with shop made filler. And slapped on some gelcoat.

It held in there nigh on to 40 year! But it might have been a leak, because it was cracked.

There was similar crystalin formation around the rudder shoe fitting. Probably the most difficult area for hand layup in such a narrow space in a one piece mold. I can imagine they had to use broomstick handles to jam composit down in there. Perhaps one fastener only went thru any real meat in my boat... but

It held in there nigh on to 40 year.

Under the cabin sole the lead ballast is indeed covered with polyester and mat. In 338 the back of the ballast is exposed in the bottom of the sump. The mat on top does not turn down into the sump. I painted the area with epoxy previous to filling the encapsulated keel area. At the end of the injection process which took a few weeks, I looked down into the sump to see if any epoxy was leaking in and saw a couple inches of shiney stuff. Tasting it, was salt water! After a year on the hard. Forcing out 40 year old fossil water with liquid epoxy.

Anyway, Pearson may have left the back of the ballast open just so it would drain into the sump. IMCO.:D

Go sailing now, for the end of the season is nigh.

[Theis]

Interesting comment. I, too, found glass matt that didn't seem to be saturated with resin - sort of rotted. And now I understand why. And for no other reason than it didn't seem right, I tried to correct it, but at the time thought that I might not be able to. So who cares. Its been forty years now, and I'm off for a weekend of sailing in a couple days.

[DavidSpaulding]

Well, I've considered everything people have posted and decided to launch and work to correct the problem at haul-out at the end of the season, which, as a few have pointed out, is not too far away! (At least here in Maine, where we get about 10-12 good weekends in the summer!)

David
Ceili, Commander 256

[Theis]

Right decision. In my humble opinion, get that puppy in the water and enjoy it. May you have fair winds.

[Brendan Watson]

I also found a weeping keel shortly after being lifted off the blocks that I sat on all winter.
Right at the point that would strike in a grounding, the leading edge of the lower-most
part of the keel, a persistent drip developed. Having completed a fairly extensive re-coreing
project and major paint work the drip seemed poorly deserved. I'm aware that encapsulated
lead- keel-boats have voids in them that don't nessesarily communicate with the bilge, it's just
that on my boat, it bothered me. An old salt in the marina agreed that all keels of this age and
climate weep a little. If it bothers you trowl on some 5200. I did, fast-cure at that, but the leak
bore through the urethane and contiued it's annoying drip.
While in the slings, my launch was to be the next day, I began to investigate the source of the drip.
Grinding down through the bottom paint, barrier-coat and original gel coat revealed a crack
in the laminate. At this point I felt stuck as I could not repair the area untill I got rid of the water source.
What the hell, I went for it with the grinder and revealed a super-major old repair that must have been
one devastating grounding. Or maybe the boat was dropped. The repair was executed with
a body filler type filler. While gray in some areas the filler was saturated with water and stood
out as black. While carving out the filler, I drilled some 1/4" holes into the void behind the crack
and out streamed about a quart or so of resiny,salty water.
The stream abated and much more slowly continued to drip. Useing a shop-vac I sucked the
remaining water out ofabout a dozen holes that went into the void, a couple into the lead.
What was most distubing is the condition of the original laminate. Wet, confused, and
seriously degraded matt or chopped strand as well as a liberal vein of pure resin formed this
deteriorated strata.
To the point I now recommend insisting on a bow stand and making sure the blocks the keel sits
on, are flat and fair to minimize point loading that will cause the cracks that allow the water to migrate.
The bondo was up to an inch thick in areas and as I ground it out, all cracked and crazed, relized I
had once again opened up a major project.
This is the end of day three and after flushing out the holes with alcohol and vacuming for hours,
with the drip long gone, yet with a dampness to the laminate. I began to apply heat and that
pretty quickly showed promise as the laminate began to look and feel alittle frostier. I'm goin to
the matt with this one and hope to have the existing laminate dry and built up and fairedwithin two weeks.
Obviously dependant on weather. I intend to build up to fair useing no filler,just laminated cloth.
Iwant this area of the boat to be as solid as possible and filling in the void with epoxy and solid glass
should insure a better than new laminate. My advice to anyone with asimular problem would be to
go sailing and drain it in the fall. There is little chance that the water in the keel void could enter the
bilge. Even if a path existed in all likelyhood the pressures would cancel each other out.
But for my own peace of mind I decided to go after the drippy keel.
Cheers,B
Commander#215