Centaur Keel diagnosis - part 2

dylanwinter

dylanwinter

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www.keepturningleft.co.uk
the B layout Centaur with the squidgy foredeck has not had the keels re-enforced

it has been on a pontoon for the past ten years

it does not leak when at rest

it dribbles a bit when it is being sailed in rough conditions

"less than a bucket a week"

your analysis gratefully received

D
 
dylanwinter said:
the B layout Centaur with the squidgy foredeck has not had the keels re-enforced

it has been on a pontoon for the past ten years

it does not leak when at rest

it dribbles a bit when it is being sailed in rough conditions

"less than a bucket a week"

your analysis gratefully received

D
Click to expand...

Depends where its leaking exactly.

If just the keel bolts probably no worries.

If the grp is beginning to fail its more serious
 
I've never heard of the grp failing on Centaur keel stubs.

My Father reinforced his 1979 Centaur's keels - they were weeping very slightly going in and out of soft mud.

He also recently advised a chum who has just bought 1979 Centaur.

In both cases it's a very simple job, simply transverse webs, strong ones and plenty of them.

No great drama at all just common sense.
 
Seajet said:
I've never heard of the grp failing on Centaur keel stubs.

My Father reinforced his 1979 Centaur's keels - they were weeping very slightly going in and out of soft mud.

He also recently advised a chum who has just bought 1979 Centaur.

In both cases it's a very simple job, simply transverse webs, strong ones and plenty of them.

No great drama at all just common sense.
Click to expand...

that is what I like to hear

if they only weep a bucket a week when sailing then I shall leave well alone

this one has been ashore for two years...

will they get worse for sitting ashore for that amount of time?

I am hopeful that this one will fit the bill

right place, right price

myself, wife and Centaur anatomist are going to look at her on Sunday morning

D
 
dylanwinter said:
that is what I like to hear

if they only weep a bucket a week when sailing then I shall leave well alone

this one has been ashore for two years...

will they get worse for sitting ashore for that amount of time?

I am hopeful that this one will fit the bill

right place, right price

myself, wife and Centaur anatomist are going to look at her on Sunday morning

D
Click to expand...



Seajet said:
I've never heard of the grp failing on Centaur keel stubs.

My Father reinforced his 1979 Centaur's keels - they were weeping very slightly going in and out of soft mud.

He also recently advised a chum who has just bought 1979 Centaur.

In both cases it's a very simple job, simply transverse webs, strong ones and plenty of them.

No great drama at all just common sense.
Click to expand...


Isnt it the GRP stubs onto which the keels are bolted that fail .... hence the reason for reinforcing them.

The diagrams I linked to on the WOA Yahoo group in a previous thread on the subject shows the transverse webs and several additional layers of glass on the insides of the keel stubs
 
My keels leaked a bit when they had been ashore for a couple of months. They didn't leak in the previous 3 years or after they had settled down.

I understand that water seeping into the GRP layup is worse than water leaking in to the boat, if you are keeping the boat which you may or may not be doing.
 
VicS said:
Isnt it the GRP stubs onto which the keels are bolted that fail .... hence the reason for reinforcing them.

The diagrams I linked to on the WOA Yahoo group in a previous thread on the subject shows the transverse webs and several additional layers of glass on the insides of the keel stubs
Click to expand...

And someone else posted some pictures showing the failure of the GRP begiining to be visible On the outside of the keel stubs above the joint with the keels
 
I would have thought extra layers of grp is a pretty obvious part of fitting the webs !

I've dealt with lifting quite a few Centaurs of all ages they were made in and out of the water, none has had any actual failure or even cracking of the keel stubs - and that is at a place with thick soft mud, supposedly the worst case scenario though I'd take that any day to banging on a hard sand seabed.

A chum had an early model, he'd reinforced her keels - he's a pro engineer - but no matter what he did inside inc using a box spanner with 6' lever, whenever the boat was hoisted a tiny gap, say 2-3mm, would open up at the forward end of the keel joins.

No ill effects, it just irritated the hell out of him !

My Fathers and my chums' 1979 boats were and are immaculate; Dad's boat would still weep say an eggcupful a week- again despite using box spanner & 6' bar - and as the boat went up and down in and out of the mud on the mooring there would be the odd creak, but that was it.

When one considers the loads on splayed keels going in and out of mud twice a day there's bound to be some movement even if tiny.

Never heard of or seen any cracks.

Dylan the boat you're looking at may well open the joins very slightly when hoisted, but assuming you're going to reinforce the keels internally that's all you can do, as you know it's pointless trying to apply jollop externally and it's not a problem.
 
Seajet said:
Never heard of or seen any cracks.........it's not a problem.
Click to expand...

Well thats what causes the problems. Look back and see the posted picture for yourself.


One of the boats that winters at Paynes yard but is normally kept on a drying mooring in Langstone was booked in for repairs but deteriorated so quickly that it had to be taken out ahead of schedule because it was feared that it would loose a keel and simply sink on its mooring.
I have heard of that actually happening to a boat on the Crouch.
 
No, usually ' the problems ' is just a slight leak.

What you're describing with serious leaks and keels off sounds more like complete disregard of what must be an obvious keelbolt snag, and very likely the result of hitting a hard seabed at speed.

I suppose with the number of Centaurs built some weird snag of some kind will hit one, but this sounds a bit like club bar chat.

With all the Centaurs at my club over the years I'd have heard of anything like that happening to a club boat.

The only boat we've had lose a keel or even look like it was my chums' plywood Mystic, years ago.

Edit - though come to think of it we did used to have a fin Hurley 24/70 whose encapsulated keel literally wobbled like a jelly as the boat went along in the hoist, I spotted it and asked the owner if he was aware, he wasn't; after that a small crowd would gather whenever the boat was moved.

Dodgy things, encapsulated keels.
 
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Seajet said:
No, usually ' the problems ' is just a slight leak.

What you're describing with serious leaks and keels off sounds more like complete disregard of what must be an obvious keelbolt snag.

I suppose with the number of Centaurs built some weird snag of some kind will hit one, but this sounds a bit like club bar chat.

With all the Centaurs at my club over the years I'd have heard of anything like that happening to a club boat.

The only boat we've had lose a keel or even look like it was my chums' plywood Mystic, years ago.

Edit - though come to think of it we did used to have a fin Hurley 24/70 whose encapsulated keel literally wobbled like a jelly as the boat went along in the hoist, I spotted it and asked the owner if he was aware, he wasn't; after that a small crowd would gather whenever the boat was moved.

Dodgy things, encapsulated keels.
Click to expand...

I agree a slight leak around a keel-bolt is not a problem.

its the weakness of the keel stubs when a boat is moored on deep mud that is the serious issue and is the reason for them having to be reinforced.

Its a well known weakness although it really only comes to light AFAIK if the boat is moored on mud. The speed with which an affected boat can deteriorate to the point where it can sink on its mooring is alarming.
The boat I mentioned on the Crouch had had one side sorted out and was due to have the other side sorted the following winter IIRC..... It sank before that was done and the insurance company did not to pay up because they argued it was a known problem.

FWIW the Giffons that replaced the Centaur suffered from the same defect despite having a different designer. A good few Griffons were moulded before Westerly made any modification and according to the WOA the number of warrantee claims for Griffons was one of the fcontributing factors that lead to the collapse of Westerly Marine Construction
 
From what I've heard of the WOA they are heavily biased in favour of the late large models - which I'd suspect were a lot more of a contributory factor to the companys' demise - tend to look down on Centaurs, Griffins etc and want nothing at all to do with earlier Westerlys.

A chap at my club restored a W22 Mk 1 to as new or better condition, when I said ' the WOA must be interested in that ' he replied ' you'd think so wouldn't you but they don't want to know about anything but OceanWotsits '.

Maybe he got the wrong person, but it would explain the extreme scare stories you have been given VicS, I suppose anything but admit one's big boat didn't sell well.
 
The keels on centaurs are sealed in a 'traditional' manner, with hemp etc around the keel bolts. The mastic between the keel and stub is there mainly to spread the load from asperities on the keel casting.

If a boat has been ashore for some years the stuffing may have dried out and shrunk it seems. When first relaunched my boat took on several bucketfuls an hour when sailed (only a weep when on the mud berth.) The keels had been reseated and the keel stubs reinforced, so I decided to avoid putting anything that didn't like getting wet into anywhere low down and carried on sailing her, with a view to addressing the situation later. After a while, IIRC about six months, I noticed that water was no longer coming in, regardless of the sea state...

In other words, don't get too het up about water ingress, Check the stubs then just get an automatic bilge pump!

Don't be in any rush to tighten the keelbolts as she was probably water tight when they were last tightened and probably the best way to kipper the stubs is to over-tighten said bolts.
 
Agreed, when I mentioned long tommy bars and box spanners on the keel bolts it was by people who knew what they were doing.

Another part of the keel reinforcement I forgot to mention is putting plates under the keel nuts to spread the load ( don't glass over the nuts ! ) - these are roughly 4" square by memory, so as to fit between the extra webs.
 
Seajet said:
I've never heard of the grp failing on Centaur keel stubs.
.
Click to expand...

I certainly have. A friend's Centaur developed cracks across the front of the stubs.
It was on a drying mooring on fairly firm sand at Ravenglass.
In fact, over the years I was there, every one of the 6 or 7 Westerlys that were kept there, from Warwicks to Konsorts, had major keel problems.
One Konsort sank.
 
Seajet said:
From what I've heard of the WOA they are heavily biased in favour of the late large models - which I'd suspect were a lot more of a contributory factor to the companys' demise - tend to look down on Centaurs, Griffins etc and want nothing at all to do with earlier Westerlys.
Click to expand...

I had a 70s Westerly until three years ago, and I was a member of the WOA. I never felt any particular bias, and the magazine had regular technical articles on Centaurs, Longbows and the rest of that era.
 
earlybird said:
I certainly have. A friend's Centaur developed cracks across the front of the stubs.
It was on a drying mooring on fairly firm sand at Ravenglass.
In fact, over the years I was there, every one of the 6 or 7 Westerlys that were kept there, from Warwicks to Konsorts, had major keel problems.
One Konsort sank.
Click to expand...

What do you expect, bouncing any boat on hard sand - may as well be concrete - is utter cruelty !
 
Dylan not being funny but you are going to bounce around Scotland's inlets on a reinforced centaur with a full crew, right? QED
Just a matter of assessing who has or will do the work, keep the Interest up and the fair value .. Fair eh?

Now I have seen a collapsed centaur ashore in Florida which simply wiggled and waggled its way to complete GRP failure during a cat 2 hurricane. The boat fell over off one torn out bilge keel stub and the mast then buckled upon hitting its neighbour . (And I have pictures but you will have to take my word for now as they are 15yrs old and in deep storage ..)

Not something to take lightly, this, and time saving makes for some of the worst decisions in sailing, notwithstanding the window of opportunity to you and family..
One hard bounce on sand and your marginal boat will be a family show stopper, take a step back perhaps?

I really don't know what else to say, you are an intellugent chap, so I shall now desist! Best of luk etc
 
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Blueboatman said:
Dylan not being funny but you are going to bounce around Scotland's inlets on a reinforced centaur with a full crew, right? QED
Just a matter of assessing who has or will do the work, keep the Interest up and the fair value .. Fair eh?

Now I have seen a collapsed centaur ashore in Florida which simply wiggled and waggled its way to complete GRP failure during a cat 2 hurricane. The boat fell over off one torn out bilge keel stub and the mast then buckled upon hitting its neighbour . (And I have pictures but you will have to take my word for now as they are 15yrs old and in deep storage ..)

Not something to take lightly, this, and time saving makes for some of the worst decisions in sailing, notwithstanding the window of opportunity to you and family..
One hard bounce on sand and your marginal boat will be a family show stopper, take a step back perhaps?

I really don't know what else to say, you are an intellugent chap, so I shall now desist! Best of luk etc
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thank you for your concern for my family safety

that is a bootiful thing for one stranger to care about the welfare of another

the keels on this one have not been re-enforced - as far as I know although the bloke seemed a bit unclear what I was talking about. Thanks to this forum I now know how to tell if they have been done

he did phone me back and ask me if I was sure that I really wanted to drive all that way to look at a boat he has not touched for two years

I assured him that I have been looking at boats that were nothing short of skip fodder

the keels have stayed attached to the boat for 36 years - so I would be very unlucky if they fell off this coming year

I will do my best to avoid too much bouncing

gentle settling on the bottom of the sandiest inlets I can find or close to a wall in a drying harbour perhaps.

If there is a keel threatening Cat 2 hurricane this summer then I shall stand on the shore and film it

if the holiday stops because of a sinking boat the family will get on a bus and go home, I will return to Port Edgar and re-launch Katie L and carry on

it will be an adventure - and at a certain age adventures are few and far between

the difference between an adventure and a holiday is that at some stage on an adventure you have to wish you were not on it....

If it turns out to be just a sailing holiday then that will be great - I am the only member of the family who has seen dolphins and whales in the flesh....

D
 
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