Ariel #24

[Tim Mertinooke]

It was too hot and muggy yesterday to paint the interior or varnish my brightwork so I decided to continue my assault on the bilge.
I poured a fair amount of epoxy into bilge to seal the area up after prepping by sanding and an acetone wash. Water would make its way through the laminate somehow and migrate out the shoe. I tested and verified this happening through a controlled experiment last month. I'm not entirely sure the path the water took whether it was through a fissure or through laminate that was compromised through the exposure of water over such a long period of time, but water and gravity did its thing exploiting a weakness somewhere. After letting the area dry out completely over the past month, I tilted the boat back with a jack and poured the epoxy. By tilting the boat back the epoxy ran backwards and pooled over the area the rudder shoe is located. After this kicked so that it wasn't tacky, I grinded the areas of the bilge where there were tumor-like things sticking out. These were areas of random saturated roving that fell from above or folded in the process of layup. Some of these bulges were filled with water, so they may also have been blisters. This area was filled with water for a VERY long time so blisters are certainly a possibility. After removing these tumors, then prepping and cleaning the area up I applied another large amount of epoxy, this time thickened. I plan to prep this coating today and put another thick layer of thickened epoxy on tonight followed by a thin coating poured on after that thickened layer coold down. This last unthickened layer will create a nice smooth finish on the bottom. My next step is to continue peeling and scraping off the excess resin Pearson coated the bilge with, then rolling on epoxy as a barrier coat, then painting with bilgekote. A lot of work in the end, but I will have the deep, accessible, smooth bilge I wanted that only alloows water in or out upon my command. Plus one keel void will be gone...right?


I fabricated a tool to grind down the weird high spots in the bilge by duct-taping a dremel and 80 grit flapwheel onto a broom handle. I had worklight and shop vac bolw the sole which worked very well as I had plenty of light to see through the dust and the dust was quickly removed va the shop vac. There was no dust in the cabin from the grinding that I could see. You are looking at the aft end of the bilge where the rudder shoe is located. You can see the epoxy that I had poured earlier in the day.




Here is what the area looked like after I grinded down the tumors and shop vacuumed the dust out.




The next step was to prep the poured epoxy and add the thickened coat which I used to build up a few areas and fair others at the bottom of the bilge. The tool of choice was a plastic putty knife duct-taped to the end of a broom stick. This worked well as I just needed the material spread out and somewhat fair as another coat will go on top.




Result thus far.




This is the aft section of the lead ballast. I have witnessed water coming out of this area from the void between the keel and lead ballast. After prepping the laminate, I goped a large amount of epoxy here. I will be adding a lot more here later to ensure a nice thick barrier preventing the transfer of water.