While waiting for the epoxy to do its thing yesterday I scraped the bottom paint off of a couple spots at the aft end of the keel just above the rudder strap (see pic one.) What I found was interesting and perplexing (two feelings I have often these days working on A-24) at the same time. There is a purple substance that I have also found a few other places on the boat filling what appears to be a hole or something. This filler material is extremely hard. In the center of the material as seen in pic two and three there is a hole. I was able to shove an exploratory stick way up, so there is clearly space there. There are two areas like this. Does anyone know what I am looking at? Do these holes allow water into the bilge? How did A-24 stay afloat before me?
The hole can be seen in the center of the purple filler and goes straight up.
Here is a closer shot.
Last edited by Tim Mertinooke; 04-22-2007 at 05:39 AM.
I've also encountered the same blue chalk/polyester mess in several locations on my boat. I think the folks at pearson must have been using carpenter's chalk to thicken polyester resin for fillets & fairing compounds. I was going to blame it on a previous owner but it occurs in places that only the factory has touched... (like under bulkhead tabbing). I've found it to be as brittle as bondo. well worth chipping out and replacing with some marine grade material.
Thanks Bill. I'm glad that repair is history. Now I'm focusing on the rudder shoe, rudder, etc. Whn you removed your rudder, dod you encounter anything like the two holes I posted pictures of in the earlier posts. I am going to just fill them in but can't for the life of me figure out why they are there or where they go.
I think you found the propeller aperture.. At least that's where my prop is located.
I've read that all hulls had the cut out for an inboard prop. The factory then faired-in a separate piece to fill in the aperture if the boat was built as an outboard. The blue fairing compound on the seam appears to match lower section of the yellow outline in the picture attached (from A-409). From some other observations on this site this is another wet spot although it shouldn't result in water reaching the bilge. It will possibly lead to freeze/thaw damage if water is traped in there. I suspect you will find more of that blue fairing about 1 foot above the spot you found.
while the rudder is out, you may want to clean out and fair the slot where the rudder meets the trailing edge of the keel. on my boat there were a couple of thin spots in that slot where the rudder had chafed against the hull opening up a couple small holes.
good luck,
bill
Last edited by bill@ariel231; 04-22-2007 at 07:03 PM.
Bill, that makes a lot of sense and yes there is another one about a foot or so above. I'll just grind them out a little then fill with epoxy. I can't wait to see how dry my new bilge is once I launch this summer. A dry bilge is like a good cup of coffee, although there is only a handful of us out there that can relate to such a comparison. Thanks for the info!
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