bilge keel process from pressure wash to antifouling

[Dellquay13]

Hi all,
My first yacht, a 1980 Foxhound has just been delivered to the boat yard, 280miles away from home, in the middle of covid lockdown.

When I am finally allowed to travel and start working on it, I need to get the boat prepped into a reasonable condition asap, to get some experience in it this summer. I can spend a lot more time and attention and maybe money next spring when things are hopefully coming back towards normal. Common layup jobs like engine service and hull antifoul are not new to me, but dealing with keels is.

I can't afford expensive processes like shotblasting, or weeks of layering thin coats of anything a little bit at a time, because it's a 10 hour round trip.

Will my keels be cast iron, so a little bit porous? It's spent years in Cardiff bay in freshwater and will be going into salt water, does that make a difference?

There are no sign of keel anodes, and as the boat seems to have lasted 40 years without, do I need some fitting, and how?

To get me through to the winter haul out, can I just do this?
1 leave the keels a few weeks to gently weep out some moisture, while I'm not allowed to travel anyway
2 wire brush on a grinder the worst of the rust away
3 treat with fertan or kure-rust etc
4 a few coats of primer
5 a few coats of antifoul?

that sounds like 2-3 days continuous on site, while doing other stuff to fill the days up, like getting the mast ready for the crane, and i hope I can do that around Easter.
Bearing in mind I need a quick route to a seasons use, when I might even decide to sell it on and get my motor cruiser back out of storage, are there any glaring holes in my plan?
looking forward to your thoughts...
chris

 

[Tranona]

Cast iron. No need for anodes. Rust is rust and not galvanic action. Easiest fix is grind away the rust apply 3 coats of Jotun Vyniguard or Primocon, antifoul and go sailing. Not comvinced of the value of Fertan if you get back to bare metal. See how that stands up for a season. Many people just patch up each year as blasting and doing properly with epoxy costs are out of proportion to the value f the boat.

 

[Dellquay13]

thanks tranona,
that looks like what the previous owner has done, and one less stage and expense than i thought if no fertan. I was considering the jotun on price.

 

[Tranona]

Just as good as Primocon.

 

[dgadee]

I used Fertan a few times but not with great results. I put red lead on a couple of years ago as an undercoat to the antifouling and it has held up pretty well. I know it's not lead anymore but seems to work better than Fertan.

 

[Stemar]

It won't help this time, with the boat on a platform and lumps of timber but, if you've got hard standing, a garage crawler helps no end with cleaning the bottom and antifouling. Far better than lying on your back "walking" around on your shoulder blades.

 

[neil_harper140]

Hi all,
My first yacht, a 1980 Foxhound has just been delivered to the boat yard, 280miles away from home, in the middle of covid lockdown.

When I am finally allowed to travel and start working on it, I need to get the boat prepped into a reasonable condition asap, to get some experience in it this summer. I can spend a lot more time and attention and maybe money next spring when things are hopefully coming back towards normal. Common layup jobs like engine service and hull antifoul are not new to me, but dealing with keels is.

I can't afford expensive processes like shotblasting, or weeks of layering thin coats of anything a little bit at a time, because it's a 10 hour round trip.

Will my keels be cast iron, so a little bit porous? It's spent years in Cardiff bay in freshwater and will be going into salt water, does that make a difference?

There are no sign of keel anodes, and as the boat seems to have lasted 40 years without, do I need some fitting, and how?

To get me through to the winter haul out, can I just do this?
1 leave the keels a few weeks to gently weep out some moisture, while I'm not allowed to travel anyway
2 wire brush on a grinder the worst of the rust away
3 treat with fertan or kure-rust etc
4 a few coats of primer
5 a few coats of antifoul?

that sounds like 2-3 days continuous on site, while doing other stuff to fill the days up, like getting the mast ready for the crane, and i hope I can do that around Easter.
Bearing in mind I need a quick route to a seasons use, when I might even decide to sell it on and get my motor cruiser back out of storage, are there any glaring holes in my plan?
looking forward to your thoughts...
chrisView attachment 110402

Hi Chris, I had a Foxhound for 10 years in Plymouth and did exactly as you suggest. it should work fine as long as you remove all the loose rust. Yes, there is a need to repeat every year but generally thats just dealing with small areas. These keels are pretty bullet proof, just don't try to get perfection in the final surface finish by which I mean don't grind /sand too much - all that happens is you remove good metal. You could use epoxy filler on any deeper damage if you feel like it before the Primocon.

 

[Dellquay13]

Hi Chris, I had a Foxhound for 10 years in Plymouth and did exactly as you suggest. it should work fine as long as you remove all the loose rust. Yes, there is a need to repeat every year but generally thats just dealing with small areas. These keels are pretty bullet proof, just don't try to get perfection in the final surface finish by which I mean don't grind /sand too much - all that happens is you remove good metal. You could use epoxy filler on any deeper damage if you feel like it before the Primocon.

this boat has slowly migrated round the west country, via Dartmouth and Cardiff and I've now moved it Pembrokeshire. I would love to find out more history about it. It was called Jolie when it was on the Dart 20 years ago, I don't know any earlier history. Shame they weren't popular enough to have an association.

 

[Birdseye]

I guess your plan is to sail in whatever is left of our summer after lockdown finishes and then to get stuck in to maintenance duing next winter. Correct? If so then just put on a coat or two of antifoul as is and go sailing.

Cast iron keels arent porous but they often are pretty low grade iron castings which means blow holes and the like which can hold salt. I had a pair of bige keelers and found that there really was no longterm answer to keel rusting not least because you use a bilgie to dry out and that scrapes off any coating anyway. I did an experiemnt onece, completely gringing clean both keels and then coating one with VC tar eposxy and the other with some chlorinated runner pain as used on big ships. The latter lasted the longest but we are still talking of just 3 or 4 years. In short iron keels are a forth bridge job. But then some rust on them doesnt really matter anyway.