Bavaria Keel - Here we go again!

[Sandydog2]

We had a Bavaria 34 and any leak eventually finds it's way to that area as Tranona says. We had various leaks over the 12 years we owned her. Only one was salt water and I thought it was the keel bolts at first as it all found its way into that area after sailing well heeled over. That one turned out to be the exhaust hose which was leaking like a sieve.

Freshwater leaks were stanchion bases, calorifier and plumbing joints under strain. I got fed up of tasting bilge water !

You could add some food colouring to the fresh tank if you aren't sure which it is.

 

[Bobc]

Highly unlikely to be the keel bolts. For a start the keel is glued on, and if you hit something hard enough to cause damage, the most likely damage will be a broken bearer at the back end of the keel. As others have said, I suspect you have a leak through the deck somewhere.

 

[Motor_Sailor]

As to boatyards in the Northwest, Glasson Dock Marina have been doing a lot of very substantial structural glass work over the past year.

John Crompton is also highly regarded as a surveyor. ( Welcome to Small Boat Surveys )

 

[Refueler]

Everyone waiting update .....

 

[RobWard]

Everyone waiting update .....

We're going to the boat on Thursday armed with various pumps, salinity detector, kitchen roll, flour (or maybe talc.) Will report back...

 

[Refueler]

We're going to the boat on Thursday armed with various pumps, salinity detector, kitchen roll, flour (or maybe talc.) Will report back...

Don't use Flour ... better is common Talc ..... it wipes up so much easier.

You don't need much .. just a sprinkling to show where water runs ... if to much such as flour - you can create a 'dam' ....

Salinity detector ? So who's delegated to 'taste' the water ?

A good item that comes in handy if you have 240v or can find a 12v version .... an Aquarium pump ...... small, neat and handy ...

 

[sailaboutvic]

We're going to the boat on Thursday armed with various pumps, salinity detector, kitchen roll, flour (or maybe talc.) Will report back...

Water leak is probably one of the hardest thing to find , it will always find the lowest spot and not stright away .
On our other boat we use to find a small pool on one of the keel bolts , now I knew it wasn't coming from there but it didnt stop me thinking it could be ,
We sailed for days without any floor boards hard on one tack then the other, dry as a bone then some time later the pool appears in the end it was a deck drain pile that had a small crack in it , but it took weeks for us to find
Paper spread over the hull was the way we trace it in the end , the pipe was a good 8 metres from where the water ended up .
As said by many here , mop her dry and don't be concerned if once you do more water appears, the slightly movment will shift water from behind some hidden spot . Then start by leaving tac or paper without moving the boat and see is any water over some days appears,
Next run a hose over the deck especially over any fitting ,
if nothing then if you can leave boards up and go sailing at which time a start of a water trail should start to appears.
Good luck and don't panic and lastly don't ho spending hard earn cash on hualout or surveyors until you done everything you can .

 

[Tranona]

We're going to the boat on Thursday armed with various pumps, salinity detector, kitchen roll, flour (or maybe talc.) Will report back...

Forgot to say the other 2 sources of salt water are the seawater pump - obvious when it drips at the rear and the exit pipe from the exhaust muffler. This follows corrosion of the joint with the end plate and you get pin holes which spray salt water out when the engine is running. This then slowly finds its way down to the bilge around the keel bolts. Freshwater from plumbing could be anywhere as there are so many joints and connections, but one often forgotten is the deck shower inside the transom.

Water appearing after a hard sail may not be coming in then, but is water that has been held in the stringers and gets shaken around by the motion and drains down to where you find it. The amounts are small but the shallow bilge makes it all look much worse than it is.

 

[dankilb]

One small suggestion - take a few photos of/around the keel bolts and post here. (when you next get a chance)

Of course, I'm not suggesting that the eagle eyes of the forum could spot a leak which you couldn't! But it might yield some more specific/clever suggestions as to how to track the leak down or whether there is anything else 'suspect' about/around the bolts.

The only examples of this sort of failure I've encountered have been YouTube vids (e.g. early 'Expedition Evans' when they acquired their big Bene as salvage after a bad grounding), but the evidence of water ingress seemed very obvious/critical/chronic from that.

I'm not personally convinced it would/could be the keel myself - but what do I know?! I guess you could get very unlucky, whereby an area of the adhesive/sealant has 'let go' somehow after that impact (not enough applied in manufacture?) and is letting in water, but it certainly seems a big stretch compared to all the many, many other things that can leak as cited above.

Good luck! (and PM reply sent re: Liverpool yard contact/recommendation)

 

[Yngmar]

This comes up all the time on the Bavaria forums. It never is the keel bolts. It usually is a leak from somewhere else in the boat, engine, freshwater, holding tank, hatches, portlights etc.

Sometimes, the leak has been fixed already, but water has been trapped somewhere in the hollow stringers or different bilge compartments, only running out through the limber holes when the boat is heeling over or moving just right for it to escape the maze. This then leads to panicked "OMG KEEL LEAKING WHEN UNDER SAIL EVERYONE DIE SCREAM TERROR" thoughts.

Fact is, the central bilge where the keel bolts are is the lowest point in the boat (at rest) and all water eventually ends up there. The easiest way to rule out the keel bolts is to build a moat around them: grab your roll of butyl tape, clean up the bilge, stick a moat all around the suspected keel bolt(s) and go sail. The water is now either inside the moat (keel bolt leaking) or outside the moat (something else leaking). You can then disable the panic alarm and go about the long voyage to finding the real culprit!

 

[Bav32]

As Allan has said finding a way to detect where the water comes from is the way to go. In the past I have had great success using the largs rolls of blue kitchen rolls of paper. The advantage of the blue commercial stuff is that it leaves a stain like a gide mark even after it dries.
Get a couple of big rolls of the stuff and put in lots of places and wait for the results.

 

[Blueboatman]

Unless there is evidence of stress cracking to the inner moulding ( and you would need to know the model to know where to look and feel) I would be surprised ( disappointed for the OP really ) if there was keel bolt trouble..
Those boats are engineered to take a bump or two .
Bent stantions, window seals and pressurised water systems and engine hoses otoh are what they are!
A pressure wash ( when allowed) might help reveal a deck leak?

 

[dankilb]

This comes up all the time on the Bavaria forums. It never is the keel bolts. It usually is a leak from somewhere else in the boat, engine, freshwater, holding tank, hatches, portlights etc.

Sometimes, the leak has been fixed already, but water has been trapped somewhere in the hollow stringers or different bilge compartments, only running out through the limber holes when the boat is heeling over or moving just right for it to escape the maze. This then leads to panicked "OMG KEEL LEAKING WHEN UNDER SAIL EVERYONE DIE SCREAM TERROR" thoughts.

Fact is, the central bilge where the keel bolts are is the lowest point in the boat (at rest) and all water eventually ends up there. The easiest way to rule out the keel bolts is to build a moat around them: grab your roll of butyl tape, clean up the bilge, stick a moat all around the suspected keel bolt(s) and go sail. The water is now either inside the moat (keel bolt leaking) or outside the moat (something else leaking). You can then disable the panic alarm and go about the long voyage to finding the real culprit!

^^^great advice this (as there is lots more of above ?)

If the OP wants an ‘all out’ moat option, the prev owner of our boat for some reason had short (say 50mm) lengths of GRP tube/pipe cut and glued (glassed) around each keel bolt. I did push him as to why and he just said to keep the bilge water out and the boat was a leaker at the time, so… anyway, I digress! But I do rather like these ‘keel bolt protectors’ now. They are maybe 10mm more in diameter than the widest point on the keel bolts/washers. Our backing plates are still encapsulated (as from factory) so water would logically still have to come out from there via the heads of the studs/bolts.

You could easily replicate this with some cheap polypipe, cut with a hacksaw/drop saw, and butyl taped (or a dab of sika or whatever) in place to seal around the base.

They would resist encroachment by bilge water almost regardless of volume/motion and could be left in place for as long as until fully satisfied the water isn’t from the keel.

Don’t know if this is an acknowledged ‘feature’ or a quirk of our boat - but just a thought…

 

[Tranona]

Normally Bavarias are very dry boats so like blood a little bit of water goes a long way. If left around the keel bolts, the aft one in particular it can lead to staining which looks awful - hence the panic button. But once the leak is fixed and the bilge cleaned out it is back to dry dust only. Because of the multiple stringers and the fact that the leak is usually a long way from the bilge it can take a while for all the water to get out. I had that with my first Bavaria (source transom shower) and once fixed and cleaned up, not a drop for the next 8 years before I sold it. Second Bavaria was different design and bilge layout and the seawater from bust muffler ended up under the engine and the bilge section in the galley. Nowhere near the keel bolts or pump sump. You live and learn.

 

[RobWard]

This has all been tremendous and encouraging, though to be fair I don't think I've gone on to full Captain Mainwearing mode just yet!
We'll definitely go to the boat this week, armed with whatever it takes to drain the stringers (any reason not to use the oil extractor?), build moats round the bolts, and sprinkle flour with gay abandon!
Will keep you all posted, and thanks again.

 

[Tranona]

Quite difficult to get water out when the boat is stationary as it is individually only small amounts in each and often below the level of the limber holes. That is why it comes out when the boat starts bouncing around. The total amounts are small and unless you find the source will just keeping going in a continuous cycle! Concentrate on mopping out the bilge and then checking all the obvious sources of leaks. Can be very frustrating finding them but you may be lucky and it is one of the obvious ones like the muffler, water pump, calorifier, transom shower.

 

[Bobc]

If you want to "moat" the keel bolts, just get some rubber bungs and put them into the limber holes in the section where the bolts are.

 

[Stemar]

(any reason not to use the oil extractor?

A Pela type manual pump will be fine. I inherited an electric one with the boat and the instructions say not to use it with water. I'm guessing it's because the pump innards will corrode.

 

[Refueler]

I use my hand Pela to empty any liquid I find anywhere .... diesel - oil - water

I even created my own suction pipe of larger bore flex pipe to long alloy tube than supplied for fuel tank . bilge emptying.

Tip : Over time - the original flexi pipe outer sheath starts to break up and air leaks start. The pipe is similar to bicycle brake outer bowden ...
Solution ? Strip of the bad outer sheath, you can leave good ... slide on heat shrink tubing as used for electrical connections - you can buy it in long lengths ... then heat shrink it to seal the pipe ....
Lasts quite well - when it fails - repeat.

 

[RobWard]

If you want to "moat" the keel bolts, just get some rubber bungs and put them into the limber holes in the section where the bolts are.

That's an excellent idea! Doh! (For the avoidance of doubt - I think that's a great idea, the 'doh' was directed at me for not thinking of it.)