...and the bilge/sump. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
...and the bilge/sump. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Mike
Totoro (Sea Sprite 23 #626)
Looks like the correct nomenclature for the photos . . . although voids in the keel are also found elsewhere.A few hours searching the subject should turn up all the locations discovered by various owners.
Somebody else should pipe in here.
I would call that the sump,
but on 338 'they' sloped that skinny area there, in the photo, up some so that water would stay more or less right at the end of the lead ballast. So that 338's sump. It's narrow but has a bottom - how far down to the actual bottom of the keel I don't know, but it's close. It's probably a good idea to have access to the bilge pump just behind the c'way ladder.
Pg 12 (Ebb's Gal.) #169, the right hand photo shows the under cockpit view of this sump area.
The small bulkhead is built against the end of the lead ballast.
The cockpit drains and thruhulls have been removed, so you can't reference with them.
Last edited by ebb; 02-02-2006 at 02:49 PM.
Interesting. The bilge on 414 appears to be deeper aft than a231 by about a foot aft. The low point in A231's bilge is directly under the companionway steps.
ebb, I see the 32 gallon water tank you are talking about (nice job there by the way). The foam filled void on mine is the region beneath the aft portion of your water tank.
Judging from the photos in 414. It would be interesting to drill a hole at the bottom of the chalked circle and see how much water runs out. The foam filled keel void i'm talking about is a trapazoidal volume shown in yellow below:
ps. For A-231, I'm in the process of adding an inspection port below the engine that will allow me to check the false keel volume annually without drilling a hole in the keel.
From what I've seen in other threads, there appears to be a lot of variability in the construction of this area from boat to boat.
Last edited by bill@ariel231; 02-03-2006 at 09:11 AM.
Neat and useful picture Bill. I was thinking that's what you were talking about with the "keel void".
I'll try and remember to measure and post when I get around to doing it.Originally Posted by bill@ariel231
Another good point about having the bilge pump more accessible. It's a real pian now. I have to dangle upside down through the cockpit hatch and yank it up by the hose now.
Mike
Totoro (Sea Sprite 23 #626)
That must be Everette's Folly, or a DFO's.
Thanks for the great graffics!
The sump in 338 is right at the end of the ballast in your pic. Untill I walled it off you could see and touch the lead. Golly!
So that's pretty low down.
So it gets kind of narrow. (The sump hole has also been epoxy reinforced which decreases volume a bit.) You could fit in the bottom a small electric pump with no room for a float switch. So 338's electric pump cannot be a submersible.
Filling in with foam under the cockpit, as you show, would leave very little room for real bilge water.
But it looks like you could fairly easily excavate a suitable cavity in the foam and line it for an automatic bilge pump.
Last edited by ebb; 02-03-2006 at 07:47 AM.
I did the same on starcrest
how do you know the area being injected was dry? what I used was seagoing epoxy-I filled calking gun tubes--dont recall how much was used....but water kept coming out to no end----I have found that on all full keel fiberglass boats---the area just fore of the rudder shoe----no matter what type of boat---always had crazing----with water seeping out for weeks---- jus'go to any long term haul out yard---this particular area is subjected to all the turning forces---its bound to be a vulneral place on any size boat.thats why I replaced the wrist pins with bronze bolts---not only on the shoe but on the goudgeouns and pintles.one good way to be sure the area is dry is to leave the boat in the desert for a few weeks or months.I remember the mojave desert to be very arid in deed---and the heat----
Last edited by eric (deceased); 02-11-2006 at 05:08 PM.
You can't know can you?
And if anybody can think of a way to dry in there wihout mortifying the boat I'd like to know too.
338's hull had every opportunity to dry out -and then I drilled the drains - and it sat around some more. You try to imagine what floor sweepings and pieces of balsa Pearson put down there when they placed the lead and after four decades of soaking in weird bilge cocktails what kind of pudding it all became.
The reasoning was to replace the void with something and lock the ballast up. Shouldn't really have a loose long ton of lead in the bottom of yer boat. I have a feeling that most laminating epoxies are not unhappy with damp. It should flow fairly well into all empty space and setup as well. But using epoxy in there increases the chance that it is really encapsulated and maybe that helps keep water out of the laminate.
And I feel better knowing (assuming) the boat in the yard is sitting on something hard.
Probably could force hot air thru the void/ballast with extra holes in the hull drilled in the 'corners' of the ballast cavity. Maybe a commercial dehumidifier could be used. You then may get a better afinity to the surfaces and junk on the inside of the hull if it was drier - but I don't think anything is going to actually bond together really.
Last edited by ebb; 02-12-2006 at 12:19 AM.
or any other desert will dry it out but good.another possible way would be to chase the water out with acetone
Last edited by eric (deceased); 02-12-2006 at 01:14 PM.
A bit of a different take on this issue. Ariel #82 had been laid up for many years with water in the bilge. When it was rehabed, I found that a large chunk of glass was missing from under the bulb at the forward end of the keel, leaving the glass exposed. This likely was caused by frequent groundings on the rocks of the Great Lakes, but it may have been caused by winter freezing. The exposed glass was a yucky brownish color.
I drilled holes near the rudder post as suggested in the Manual and found brown moist foam, but little water came out.
Before I floated #82 again, I laid it over on its side, and midway along the keel, an inch or two from the bottom, drilled a 1+" hole and filled the hollow area with about 3 gallons of resin. Because the boat was on its side, the resin likely wound up on one side of the lead, all the way between the bottom of the keel and keel cap under the bilge. The reason for only doing one side of the keel cavity was that I wanted to leave plenty of expansion room for the lead within the keel cavity.
I then plugged the hole at the bottom of the keel with a removable plug.
I have had significant trouble with the holes I drilled near the rudder post. Moisture leakage from the inside (assumedly retained by the foam) has continued to pop the glass primer (although, now with several years behind me on this project, that problem seems to be largely cured).
However, when I take the boat out for the winter, and pop the drain plug, water still comes out, and it is more than a dribble. Perhaps a quart - perhaps a gallon - who knows.
So for those that are in areas that freeze, drain the keel at the bottom. If the keel cavity has already been cracked by freezing, don't worry about it any more because the keel will drain by itself assuming you find brown stains at the forward end of the keel.
Theis,
Next time you're out for a while,
while the boat is still upright,
drill some holes at the top of the ballast
and maybe fill the void from the top ?
Intrigued by 'expanding lead'
I think 338 has regular ole lead lead.
Last edited by ebb; 02-17-2006 at 03:36 PM.
Just how bad is this water in the keel void issue? My Commander had one very small weeping spot half way up from the bottom of the keel ... to were the hull flairs out ... noticed it when I pulled my boat for repairs. It weeped for a few days. My boat was somewhat flooded from deck damage, the bilge pump had stopped working though the battery still had a good charge left.
The manual contains a major discussion on this problem.
Thanks Bill. I've got many pages of info on this from other 60's boats websites and forums, too, but there always seems to be more that comes up with further discussion.
Fred
The expanding lead issue: Good old Lead Lead, as with any metal, has a different coefficient of expansion than fiberglass - i.e. it expands and contracts at a different rate than fiberglass. I don't know the specific amount of the difference but it is more, I believe.
When the lead is relatively loose in the keel cavity that is no problem because there is plenty of space for the expansion. However, when the entire cavity is solid around the lead, and, in warm weather (whatever that means, in as much as the is an issue by iteself, since resin heats when it is curing), the lead expands faster than the surrounding glass/resin, something has to give, and it won't be the lead. Rather, it may be that the cavity will split - perhaps not by much, but something has to give.
Somewhat the same issue arises with freezing water in the cavity, particularly in very cold weather. Ice expands as it gets colder. The fiberglass contracts. Something has to give, andit won't be a block of ice that compresses. When the water is encased in foam, as it is in the stern, the foam MAY compress to absorb some of the ice expansion or keep the ice somewhat slushy because of the interlaced foam. But when it is a soid block of ice as it is around the keel, there will be no compression of the ice. Fortunately the lead contracts when cold, so that may provide space for some of the ice expansion.
So the answer to the question of filling in the entire cavity with resin is "Why take a chance". So there is water in the cavity. Who cares. Just be sure to drain it as one of the chores of the winter layup.
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