Centaur Keel Diagnosis

vyv_cox said:
Westerly seem to have had something of a problem with providing sufficient GRP thickness around keel attachments. A couple of the very early GK29s suffered the keel punching right through into the saloon when the boat dried - mine was strengthened twice after the initial job done by the first owner was deemed insufficient. Not long after we started cruising, around 1988, a bigger bilge keel Westerly (33, 34?) sank on her mooring in the Menai Strait when a bilge keel tore off.
Click to expand...

On my 21' fin-keeled Westerly the hull layup was increased from 1/4" to 1/2" between the keel flange and the internal backing plate (3' x 8", mild steel) and for about 1/2" around and that was that. It was like an illustration from the How and Why Wonder Book of Stress Concentration.
 
VicS said:
My understanding is that it is not so much the joint that is the problem but the actual GRP hull lay up around the keels.
Click to expand...

Yes, it's the same problem on the 31ft hulls as well. The bottom drops out of the stub, the exact shape of the keel so the failure point is around the edges of the keel joint. Usually, if the antifoul is scraped away, stress cracks can be seen in the faces of the stubs above the keels if there's a problem. By now I would have thought most should have been beefed up with glass and transverse bulkheads in the stubs.
 
dylanwinter said:
I have been on here long enough to cope with the scare mongering, negativity and welter of opinions formed without the benefit of experience or hard information.

The mood of the forum in the winter is often worse than the summer.

However, among the YBW posters are people who can usually be relied upon to offer good information or good sense.

I sometimes feel sorry for the optimistic new boat owners who come on here and post an inncoent question only to get the YBW Frasers wade in with their comments.



of course there are times when the pessimists are correct and it would have been better to have stayed at home and done nothing at all

as for looking for a better boat with a broken bimini - I would not be arsing about with dead Centaurs if £10K was as nothing to me

I would just buy a decent one in Scotland and get on with the family holiday to Shetland.

D
Click to expand...

All well said +1.

It is the way of all Internet forums to be pessimistic irrespective of the subject matter. But it is true that this forum is always more doom laden in the winter.

I have been working through my Christmas present of KTL DVDs as an antidote. Lots of it is what I would consider really ballsy thin water sailing in, with respect, a pretty old and seat of your pants boat in the slug. And you always find a solution. If I may say so the main theme of the films is good weather judgement and that's the key to cruising, isn't it?

You will do exactly the same with the centaur. My thoughts about the keels- it's never going to happen that both fall off at the same time, so the worst thing that can happen is you start making awful leeway on one tack and will know what has happened immediately. So what- you will get in and know what your problem is. And it's never going to happen anyway.

I want my next Christmas set of DVDs and I hope you find your boat for the job.

All best of luck,

Cheers
 
bitbaltic said:
My thoughts about the keels- it's never going to happen that both fall off at the same time, so the worst thing that can happen is you start making awful leeway on one tack and will know what has happened immediately. So what- you will get in and know what your problem is. And it's never going to happen anyway.
Click to expand...

But that is not what happens<

The GRP around the keels fails and one day when the boat has been dried out oin deep mud the boat starts to float as the tide rises but the keel stays stuck in the mud.

A fecking great hole in the bottom then means the boat sinks on its mooring.

Read what I have said earlier in the thread

Read Vyv Cox has said

Read what it says on the Owners association webs site

Absorb a few fact before giving us the benefit of rubbish you call your theoughts
 
bitbaltic said:
My thoughts about the keels- it's never going to happen that both fall off at the same time, so the worst thing that can happen is you start making awful leeway on one tack ...
Click to expand...

and have a five foot long by six inch wide rectangular hole underwater to deal with. No rush, you've got, oh, twenty or thirty seconds to solve the problem. As other have said, the problem is not that the keels fall off, it's that the bottom of the stubs break off. Sometimes.

Not, I stress, that I think this is likely to happen, and the chances can be reduced even more by brutal testing of keels before buying.
 
dylanwinter said:
keel spaces...... what are they?

tell me what you mean

yours

Mr Keel Mither of Botolph Claydon
Click to expand...

You will see when you climb inside. The pods you see on the outside are troughs inside the boat in the
bottom of locker space and when the bolts leak they fill with water. The worst case I saw was a ketch
Centaur where all the tinned foods in the lockers were floating in lockers full of water. The keels did not
leak under normal sailing however under excessive heel the the windward keel would leak IE when it was
actually horizontal. Both keels did like wise on opposite tacks. Easily fixed and the boat is still around.

It is the troughs (Pods) which the forumites are talking about reinforcing however some seem to overdo it.
 
dylanwinter said:
I have been on here long enough to cope with the scare mongering, negativity and welter of opinions formed without the benefit of experience or hard information.

The mood of the forum in the winter is often worse than the summer.

However, among the YBW posters are people who can usually be relied upon to offer good information or good sense.

I sometimes feel sorry for the optimistic new boat owners who come on here and post an inncoent question only to get the YBW Frasers wade in with their comments.



of course there are times when the pessimists are correct and it would have been better to have stayed at home and done nothing at all

as for looking for a better boat with a broken bimini - I would not be arsing about with dead Centaurs if £10K was as nothing to me

I would just buy a decent one in Scotland and get on with the family holiday to Shetland.

D
Click to expand...


You certainly are getting the Pessy view this winter......The only boat I saw likely to leave its keel in the mud was
larger Westerly where there was next to no layup holding on one of the keels.

It had got to this stage by numpties deciding to use engineers torque figures for the big keel bolts. This had resulted
in severe overtightening and on some of the keel bolts the washers had disappeared down into the layup. This boat
failed a survey eventually down on the Hamble where it was sent after failing to be sold in Troon. It cost about £4500
to rectify the damage and together with a rusty engine the owners took a knock for £9500 before it was sold.

There are probably many Centaurs around with the original keel structure and which have never been on swinging moorings
which are as good as new with secure keels and without leaks or cracks like mine. It has three bulkheads and two reinforcing
pieces to each keel and the layup all looks original. I do a test from time to time removing a keel nut at random while afloat
and have yet to see water!

Yep there is a very negative view so as one other has said...Look for a boat as far from Swinging mooring country as you can
as the overall picture is not half as black as some would paint.

:encouragement::):):)
 
Here, from the WOA Yahoo group, is essentially what work is needed to strengthen the keel mountings. Pretty simple job really ... fecking sight easier than making an outboard well will be anyway

CRkeelstrengthening1.jpg


CRkeelstrengthening2.jpg




And here are the telltale signs that things are not right

CRkeelstrengthening3.jpg
 
Last edited:
VicS said:
Absorb a few fact before giving us the benefit of rubbish you call your theoughts
Click to expand...

Bit harsh don't you think?

The art of an Internet forum is attempting to disagree cheerfully, failing that humorously, and failing that silently. Otherwise you just get upset. The art of not being in possession of the full facts, by the way, is to admit it graciously, and I hope this reply constitutes just that. I certainly don't want a hull to fail under Dylan any more than you do.

As ever
 
My 2 cents - as it were.

Photo 1 - Not looking good. Apart from anything else it's strikingly obvious that little or no maintenance has been performed on the hull for quite some time. Yes, it IS a Westerly BUT it still needs to be maintained; that means lift out every few years, scraped, siko'd and AF at the least.

Photo 2 - Looks like a very standard 30-40 year old Westerly keel to hull join. A little streaking of rust, some pitting of the iron and a fairly smooth line along the length of the join. Looks exactly as it should on an okay looked-after boat.

Photo 3 - Looks too good. I'm suspicious of this one. Looks like someone's thrown some good money after bad. What lies beneath, etc.

Centaur keels, as discussed, were too heavy for the displacement and had a mind of their own, so many were returned to Waterlooville for modification at Westerly's expense. Check. You can see if it was Westerly who did the mod or another boatbuilder based on the neatness of the work, supporting paperwork (one hopes!) or a felt tip marker on the reverse side of the port cabin companionway bulkhead formica liner.
The trick with the bilgers is to inspect one, dump a bucket of water into the keel areas both sides, close everything up and retreat for a day or two and return to measure levels and inspect externally. That will inform you better than anything as to whether you have leaking keels and if you have those you have rusted bolts and a b****r of a job to drop, clean and reseal on your hands. A visual inspection (after removing rose-tinted specs) will tell the state of a hull that hasn't been strengthened.

There are lots of nice Centaurs out there. Good Luck!
 
Last edited:
ganter said:
My 2 cents - as it were.

Photo 1 - Not looking good. Apart from anything else it's strikingly obvious that little or no maintenance has been performed on the hull for quite some time. Yes, it IS a Westerly BUT it still needs to be maintained; that means lift out every few years, scraped, siko'd and AF at the least.

Photo 2 - Looks like a very standard 30-40 year old Westerly keel to hull join. A little streaking of rust, some pitting of the iron and a fairly smooth line along the length of the join. Looks exactly as it should on an okay looked-after boat.

Photo 3 - Looks too good. I'm suspicious of this one. Looks like someone's thrown some good money after bad. What lies beneath, etc.

Centaur keels, as discussed, were too heavy for the displacement and had a mind of their own, so many were returned to Waterlooville for modification at Westerly's expense. Check. You can see if it was Westerly who did the mod or another boatbuilder based on the neatness of the work, supporting paperwork (one hopes!) or a felt tip marker on the reverse side of the port cabin companionway bulkhead formica liner.
The trick with the bilgers is to inspect one, dump a bucket of water into the keel areas both sides, close everything up and retreat for a day or two and return to measure levels and inspect externally. That will inform you better than anything as to whether you have leaking keels and if you have those you have rusted bolts and a b****r of a job to drop, clean and reseal on your hands. A visual inspection (after removing rose-tinted specs) will tell the state of a hull that hasn't been strengthened.

There are lots of nice Centaurs out there. Good Luck!
Click to expand...

thank you for this

very useful

the first is a pageant apparently - it was squeezed in so tight I could not see it was smaller than a Centaur

the second has been re-engined and the owner has spent a lot of money on her - when I saw the bracket on the back I had hoped that she had a dodgy engine

the third is still in the frame and is tucked away at the back of the yard

I saw loads of them on that saturday and hardly skimmed the surface

I shall work out a route and go back to have a look at some more as soon as I have sourced a replacement jalopy

it is a haphazard way of buying a boat but at the moment I see no other way of finding semi-abandonned boats

almost by definition these boats are not on the market

I missed two earlier in the year before I had the money for the project (I managed to sell some wildlife footage for an advert)

One went for £800 and the other for £1750

thanks for the tips on the indicators of work done

I am really hopeful that I will find a boat that has been done and has only been abandonned because of the cost of replacing the engine.

of course the project may well fall apart and I will end up sailing by myself around the top

anyone fancy a yacht swap for the summer?
 
Last edited:
VicS said:
Here, from the WOA Yahoo group, is essentially what work is needed to strengthen the keel mountings. Pretty simple job really ... fecking sight easier than making an outboard well will be anyway

CRkeelstrengthening1.jpg


CRkeelstrengthening2.jpg




And here are the telltale signs that things are not right

CRkeelstrengthening3.jpg
Click to expand...

These pictures are i believe from a guy called Chris Fulford, he had/has a Centaur called Gemini, I'm pretty sure thats his keel in the bottom picture, a good sign of anything untoward externally will indeed look like that (cracking along the length of the stub wall) getting back to Chris; he was the guy who sold me the box cradle i first put mine in before making a larger copy that it sat in in the back garden.

chin chin
 
Mines a Pageant which is basically Centaur minus 3'

I lifted her this Summer and this is what it looked like (just after pressure hose and prior to AF)

Gant5837502.jpg

Don't be put off by paint flaking from the pods - this always happens and whether it's flex or pressure hose angle or just the Sea- it doesn't matter one way or the other. In your Centaur the Keel weakness will present itself on the inside of the layup.

I would say that the keels "let" about a pint or two of water a season. Which seems fine. I re-siko them every time I do a lift. Sometimes I even go as far as raking out some of the old sealant before injecting fresh but only if I'm feeling extravagant! For the last ten years I've been pondering a keel drop to do the thing properly but, you know, too busy sailing.

However, I do keep an eye on the rust around the bolts - there's a bit on each - but nothing to get in a twist about. The day she starts weeping pints in a day will be the day she comes ashore for the keel drop.

And that doesn't have to be the end of the world either.
 
rogerball0 said:
These pictures are i believe from a guy called Chris Fulford, he had/has a Centaur called Gemini, I'm pretty sure thats his keel in the bottom picture, a good sign of anything untoward externally will indeed look like that (cracking along the length of the stub wall) getting back to Chris; he was the guy who sold me the box cradle i first put mine in before making a larger copy that it sat in in the back garden.

chin chin
Click to expand...

Certainly called Chris.... Chris460593 is his user name on the Yahoo group pages.

The above are three of a series pictures, mostly his, on the keel repair. Sketch of the cradle there too!
 
VicS said:
Which as far as I know does not suffer from the keel problems that afflict Centaurs ????
Click to expand...

Happily, indeed.

However, we Pageant owners know well enough to keep an eye on our bigger sister Centaur and the problems that the extra weight may cause. :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top