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Thread: Ariel #24

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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Massachusetts
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    230

    Ariel #24

    Well, I purchased Hull #24 and will have her resting safely in my yard by the end of this month. She is in sailable shape on a nice roadworthy trailer less than an hour from my home in western Massachusetts. My wife and I are school teachers and plan on cruising the New England coast together most of the summer with our 4-year-old son. The boat will be kept in Newburyport on the Merrimack River where we have kept our Cape Dory Typhoon for the past five years. At the end of the season she will then be trailered back to my house about two hours away to be worked on. My list of projects probably looks similar to everyone elses; couple soft spots on the deck, spongy cockpit sole, replace ice box, paint interior, etc. The two most pressing issues however that will need to be done before splash time is the rudder shoe and a bulge in the keel where the lead ballast is. The rudder shoe seems strong and has no play. The fiberglass sheathing over the shoe is cracked and once I get it to my house, I will be able to grind it off to get a better assessment. My feeling is that it looks worse that it is because it appears to be very strong and the bronze rudder shaft is in good condition. The bulge however takes priority and I am ready to attack it with a grinder, then start the layup routine. My initial idea as to the cause of the bulge was water migration through the bilge, then freezing. The bulge location is where the lead ballast is, so the expansion may have pushed against the lead and the fiberglass. The other side of the hull opposite this bulge shows no bulge at all. The perplexing thing however is that it is in a very localized area. Maybe it wasn't freezing water, but a blister? Maybe water that reached the laminate from the outside then froze? It was mentioned to me on another board that this sort of thing has happened to other ariels and would be very interested in hearing from those who have been there and done that. Bulges and soft spots aside I am very excited about our new ariel. Having been an Alberg fan my whole life and weighing the trade-offs with bigger vs. smaller, the ariel is a perfect fit. Big enough to cruise, small enough to trailer home at the end of the season. My plan is to document my restoration on a website that should be up and running by the time the boat gets home.

    Tim





















    Last edited by Tim Mertinooke; 06-18-2007 at 07:30 AM.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    Pembroke Ontario Canada
    Posts
    591
    Thats a fine looking boat...well worth your efforts.Please keep us updated to your repairs and mods.Always interesting to see peoples ideas 'come to life'. They are fine sailing boats. Have fun

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    Scarborough, Maine
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    Congrats and welcome aboard Tim! Looking forward to tracking your progress on A24! She's a beaut.

    PS. Love the Mark Twain quote on your website too...
    Mike
    Totoro (Sea Sprite 23 #626)

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Location
    Pensacola, FL
    Posts
    724

    Welcome!

    Tim,

    Glad you found your way here from the Classic Plastic's site. I think you will find some of the same folks here. There is some great info to be found here.

    They really are great boats, and she will be well worth the time you spend on her.

    I look forward to watching your progress on the repair.

    Good Luck!


    s/v 'Faith'

    1964 Ariel #226
    Link to our travels on Sailfar.net

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Massachusetts
    Posts
    230

    Rudder

    Here is a picture of A-24's rudder. The shoe feels solid so my plan is to grind off the loose glass then reglass. If the shoe's integrity is in question, then a replacement shoe is in order which will be a much more substantial repair. I'll post what it looks like after grinding which will paint a clearer picture later this month when the boat is transported to my yard. Tim














    Last edited by Tim Mertinooke; 02-06-2007 at 09:31 AM.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
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    Asst. Vice Commodore, NorthEast Fleet, Commander Division (Ret.) Brightwaters, N.Y.
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    1,823
    Nice boat.

    Don't think we've seen any reports of the keel busting out like that. Not a real biggie though. Have at it!

    I'd take care that the repair is fair and symmetric with the other side.

    Bottom looks smooth. That's a bonus

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Massachusetts
    Posts
    230

    Bulge in the Hull

    The PO had removed all of the bottom paint before his last season in the water. There is one coat on most of the bottom with a few hard to reach areas with more. This was a bonus for the close-up inspection of the hull and having done it with my Typhoon last winter I can say I'm glad he did it not me.

    Yeah, the bulge was the only thing that made me the slightest bit apprehensive before purchasing. After much research, I feel confident that with some grinding and a good careful layup, in the end it will just be a bad memory. Fotunately it happened in an area where the opposing force was the lead ballast so the bulge was kept to one side. Had it froze somewhere else and compromised both sides of the hull, well, maybe A-24 would have been someone else's dream. The whole story will unfold soon and for those who seek out pixels of others breathing in fiberglass, stay tuned. Tim

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jul 2004
    Location
    Winyah Bay, SC
    Posts
    605
    Congrats, Tim! Overall she looks great! I wonder what caused that bulge?

    You mentioned you read about it at another site - where was that? I'd like to see what they said...

    Can't figure out what would have caused it, unless one of the drinken Portu's of Pearson manufacturing fame dropped a steel/iron tool down next to the ballast before it was glassed over, and then it later swelled while rusting, causing that. It will be very interesting to see what you find when you fix it up.

    Topsides look nice and shiny! Katie is jealous,

    Welcome aboard, you're gonna love sailing her.
    Kurt - Ariel #422 Katie Marie
    --------------------------------------------------
    sailFar.net
    Small boats, long distances...

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    Havre de Grace, MD
    Posts
    207
    If I'm seeing it correctly the lead grew 2 inches or better? WOW. It reminds me of the lava steps around some volcanos where the lava fractures and the pressure from below pushes each polygon up at differetn heights. The root cause of that would be interesting to know, corroding steel expands but I've never seen it push anything to that extreme. Thank you for the documentation of the dissection.
    #97 "Absum!"

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    Scarborough, Maine
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    1,439
    I would think something is up on the opposite side of that lead bulge. Could be telling. It seems like the bulge is a symptom, not the cause. Just a thought.

    Another thought: your boat has been out of the water a very long time, and was not very weather tight by the looks of things. I wonder if the repeated freeze/thaw cycle could have worked its way into a crevice in the lead casting and had its way with the lead over a number of years? (Looks like Bill posted while I was writing the edit...)
    Last edited by mbd; 04-02-2007 at 06:10 AM. Reason: Another thought...
    Mike
    Totoro (Sea Sprite 23 #626)

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Narragansett Bay, R.I.
    Posts
    597
    Tim

    you have some interesting forensic work ahead of you. I might guess something like rebar might have started the problem, opened a crack, let in some water, and a couple freeze/thaw cycles later we have the lead bulge your ballast demonstrates. would be interesting to see what you find if you drill into the cavity behind the lead bulge....

    bill


    p.s. mike, oops sorry about that
    Last edited by bill@ariel231; 04-02-2007 at 06:37 AM.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Massachusetts
    Posts
    230
    My thought which is echoed by others here and elsewhere is that the lead casting allowed water inside and over the years during freeze-thaw cycles water that entered the ballast exploited a weak spot in the casting pushing it out.

    From what I have been told by others, the casting Pearson did or had done for lead ballast was not perfect. If there was a void either from not bringing the entire mass up to melting point, or inconsistant cooling, it would make sense there could be cracks where water could pentrate the ballast. What is known is that the area was wet from my recent reclaimation of the bilge. I witnessed water trickling from the void between the keel and ballast to the aft keel void so there was certainly the right conditions to have water surround the ballast.

    I too thought something must be going on with the other side initially, but when I tap and closely observe it, it seems to be fine. I really think it is water that was in the ballast that pushed out a section not something on the other side or there would be evidence of that. I have completed the chiseling so it is now level with the surrounding ballast. My plan is to drill into the ballast to see if any water drains or to see different color shavings which would indicate something other than lead being in the casting.

    As I have said from the begining of my bilge project. I am going to try to seal the two voids from one another. If I do a good glass job, which I will, water won't enter from the outside. I am also going to grind of the old glass surrounding the aft part of the lead ballest visible when looking into the forward part of the aft keel void. I will glass it over with epoxy after prepping it, then build it up with thickened epoxy to make it as fair as I can. This should eliminate the water migration which will hopefully eliminate any water getting to the lead ballast.

    There was mention in a previous post about water getting into the void between the lead and hull through the space beneath the sole of the v-berth. Does anyone remember that post or does anyone know how water could enter through from that area?

    I do plan on removing the rudder shoe after recent revelations to rebed it so that it does not leak at all. Therefore eliminating the major highways water has been known to enter these wonderful vessels.

    Last point: I love my boat and I am thoroughly enjoying this process believe it or not.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Narragansett Bay, R.I.
    Posts
    597
    Tim

    I don't know about what other ariel owners have found but on A-231, there is a triangular section of glass at the forward edge of the ballast that was a source of water into the keel (directly below the vee-berth deck). In A-231's case, I was able to feel this section out with a dental mirror looking forward from the forward most bilge access plate. When I cut into the floor boards to repair the hull in that area (and drop in a teak grate), I found this forward most barrier to the ballast was composed of a couple layers of 6 Oz cloth and 1 inch of fractured resin. Lots of cracks in that surface allowed any water from the chain locker to find its way into the keel.

    it's post 23 in this thread.
    http://pearsonariel.org/discussion/s...?t=1230&page=2

    I'll post a picture of the area less the grate if that helps.

    cheers,
    bill@ariel231
    Last edited by bill@ariel231; 04-02-2007 at 09:38 AM.

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