Hardy Bosun 20- drying mooring???

sparkie

Well-Known Member
Joined
15 Oct 2002
Messages
617
Location
New Quay
Visit site
Hi all, new to this forum, as just considering packing up the sailing and buying a mobo due to advancing years..... I have a fore and aft drying (on beach) mooring in Cardigan Bay, so I need something that will take the ground every day, stay reasonably upright, and not end up without gelcoat due to abrasion. Been looking at the Hardy range, the Bosun 20 in particular, and wondered if anyone has experience of keeping one of these on such a mooring?? Any advice greatly appreciated. Cheers AG
 
reasonably flat bottom, provided the outboard can be tilted high enough to clear the ground........
abrasion is pretty much a factor of the environment you ground on.
 
reasonably flat bottom, provided the outboard can be tilted high enough to clear the ground........
abrasion is pretty much a factor of the environment you ground on.

Yes loads of crushed whelk shells from the local factory don't help. Good point about the o/b height, I'll need to check against my existing boat which is fine in that respect. Cheers.
 
Drying on a surface that is highly abrasive can be tackled by attaching a sacrificial surface to the hull.

Although some may flinch at drilling holes in the bottom to attach either a hardwood , metal , or plastic keel strip.

It does save the gel coat, and can be replaced when it begins to wear out.

Provided suitable fixings and sealants are used it should be good way of protecting your investment.
 
Drying on a surface that is highly abrasive can be tackled by attaching a sacrificial surface to the hull.

Although some may flinch at drilling holes in the bottom to attach either a hardwood , metal , or plastic keel strip.

It does save the gel coat, and can be replaced when it begins to wear out.

Provided suitable fixings and sealants are used it should be good way of protecting your investment.

Thanks for the suggestion. With the right fixings and adhesives it may not be necessary to actually pierce the hull I guess? Also could maybe be done in sections whilst on a trailer.. I've seen some offered with bilge plates but these may make launching and recovery more difficult. Cheers!
 
Dill makes a good point on two accounts. It works and some including myself shudder. You can buy keel bands that glue on. Long term, drilling screw holes into the keel can lead to problems and many beach launching fast fishers are moving away from that strategy as the screw holes chip and wear out dropping the screws and leaving water to get into the hull. It's particularly off putting if you have a cored layup.
 
Bruce is right about core lay ups, but normally those cores don’t usually extend into the keel areas.
I looked at a couple of images of your boat, and the keel looks to me to be quite narrow.
The probability in narrow keel sections are that after a few layers of matting the keel would be infilled with a filler mix of some sort and the lay up being continued with woven cloth which quickly builds thickness and strength. This can be confirmed by a quick look in the bilges.
In these cases tapping into the solid section and using sealants would not effect the water tightness of the hull or the glass fiber lay up to any major degree.
I would probably use steel channel section with welded on tabs to attach to the hull.
Looking also at the images I would be inclined to fit short beaching legs near the large scupper.
These could be secured easily through the raised bulwark section, and because of the hard chine over which you would knotch them would require little strengthening to make them really secure.
 
One friend used 625 inconel sheets and bonded them to the bottom of the hull, the only problem was the adhesive used required 48 hours out of the water to dry.

Mounting the engine on a double pantograph will give you additional engine lift when out of the water, several years ago I designed and built one to give 10" of lift and with the engine lifted he pulled the pins and swung the pantograph up to the top position and pushed the pins back in to lock it there.
 
How very interesting. Never heard of Inconel before, just Googled it. You wouldn't recall the adhesive used would you ? 48 hrs wouldn't be a problem on the trailer.
 
directplasticsonline.co.uk have some tough plastics for such use.

Interesting. I've dealt with them before. The problem I have with plastic usually is finding a suitable adhesive, particularly when dealing with a less than perfect base. I'll have a word with them. Cheers.
 
It looks to be a good product but I suppose if you are going to have to prepare the base to take the adhesive to any extent.

You could just coat the areas you wish to protect with a few coats of epoxy resin, and touch up when required.

I do dry my boat quite regularly but don’t bother with any protection.

It gets a bit chipped and scratched, and I do fill any serious dings before I antifoul it every couple of years.

But it’s a boat, and meant to be used, and before marinas and hoists most boats had to be dried at some time or another.
 
Yes I agreee and one mustn't get too fussy. However my last but one boat suffered quite badly, needing frequent application of additional gelcoat filler, and a Hunter Medina in the bay lost its gelcoat completely... my present has small CI bilge keels that have worked very well, but the bottoms of these are now showing serious signs of wear. All very useful comments and advice, and thanks to all respondees.
 
Top