Advice on buying a wooden boat

[becq]

Is there a centre plate case extending up and into the cabin as well as a slot in the iron ballast keel? This will have bolts around its lower perimeter which go right through the keelson/keel/ballast keel (probably!). Is the case made of steel, in which case it will be easier to seal than a wooden centre plate case, which are notorious difficult to keep leak free due to the 'working' of the structure.

There may not be a case; some boats have a small centre plate which is contained entirely within the external ballast keel. Whatever arrangement there is, a key component which can give trouble is the pivot bolt. These can be extremely difficult to access and remove but they must be kept in good condition to avoid serious problems.

Yes the case extends up into cabin. The case has been painted, but is either steel or iron, given the layer of rust around the bolts, I would suggest maybe iron. A lot of the bolts look like they have rusted quite badly, and there are a lot of them that go around the perimeter of the case, I think about 18 each side of the case at approx 3 inch intervals. I get the impression that this mates up against a wooden keelson, that attaches to a wooden keel, that extends down to iron ballast with slot in to allow the centre plate to drop through. There is a large bolt in the iron ballast which I believe is the pivot.

The centre plate casing bolts are difficult t get at near the engine, and the casing extends through one of the main bulkheads, which makes me think that it may be difficult to remove, clean up and re-seal without dismantling the bulkhead, and moving the engine. I am going to speak to the yard to get some quotes.

 

[Sniper]

That's a very clear description. I would guess that not all of the bolts go through the ballast keel, which means that to replace them will mean dropping the ballast keel off completely, as discussed by others. It might be worth seeing how much leakage there is (if any) prior to committing to complete overhaul. As others have said, there is usually a lot of overengineering and quite a lot of rusting can take place without significant loss of function.

One thought that does occur to me is that an iron/steel plate case is going to be a pig to clean internally if there is a lot of corrosion inside it.

 

[becq]

That's a very clear description. I would guess that not all of the bolts go through the ballast keel, which means that to replace them will mean dropping the ballast keel off completely, as discussed by others. It might be worth seeing how much leakage there is (if any) prior to committing to complete overhaul. As others have said, there is usually a lot of overengineering and quite a lot of rusting can take place without significant loss of function.

One thought that does occur to me is that an iron/steel plate case is going to be a pig to clean internally if there is a lot of corrosion inside it.

That description makes sense to me now. The perimeter has bolts approx 6 inches apart, these must be the bolts attaching the casing to the keel. Then there are larger bolts approx 12 inches apart. These are probably attaching the iron ballast. A lot of the bolts are very corroded.

Yes, probably a sound idea to see if casing leaks at all before overhaul.

I also understand that if the bolts are badly corroded, I may have problems extracting them from the keel.