Carlos Azevedo
New Member
Ahoy felow sailors,
First of all let me apologie for my bad english.
I'm portuguese and obvious english is my second language so I might make some gramar mistakes in my posts.
Anyway, I'm a recent owner of a Moody AC41 Classic and I'm working on her to make her ready for another season here in the Portuguese coast and maybe to the Mediterranean...
During my refit projects I found a crack and some hallow blisters in the keel. I will try my best to report here the repairs I did to make her ready for a new bottom paint, maybe this can be useful for another fellow sailors.
During my inspections on Belle a beautiful Moody AC41 Classic parked on dry in my home marina (Sines in Portugal) I found some issues on the keel:
The bottom was in relatively good shape but i found some cracks in the keel. After some investigation I found these cracks were located precisely in the junction betwen the Iron an Lead part of the keel.
I was still just dreaming of owning this beautiful boat so I just researched in the web about it and tryed to find the owner to ask if he was interested in seling her and more important If I could aford it... After some months of romance I finally got in touch with the owner. We stard to negotiate and after some more months we finally agree on the sale. emidiatly after The sale agreement I started working on her keel.
First I nedded to know how much of it was damaged so I grind the fiberglass until I found solid metal.
It was a bit more deep than I suspected.
It seems somebody has made a very bad job the last time the keel was painted, It was probably already some oxidation on the iron at that time but it was neglected and simply put some tick fairing compound and painted above to look good.
The result was an increase on the oxidation that resulted in loosen particles that created the blisters. With the time and temperature diferences the blisters cracked and there was water intrusion and a more oxidation... that resulted in this holes. Thankfully this was in the Lead part of the keel. If it was on the iron part this oxidation could make serious rust and much more damage in the keel. Anyway I grinded all oxidated parts until I found shining metal. After that I used some rust converter in the iron part that transforms rust and protect the metal... I used Jenolite Rust Converter from Amazon. It seems a good quality product it turns in Black when reacts with rust , you can see in the upper parrt of the holes (iron part of the keel)
I continued this process in all Steel-Lead joint around the keel until no rust or oxidation was seen both in lead or in iron. I fill the holes with metal epoxy and then painted with 5 coats of epoxy hempel light primer. Hopefully I resolved the problem. We will see in the next haul out....
This is the final result for now: I will report again in the next haul out...
Note: I'm not a professional in this. I'm just trying to solve problems in my own boat and sharing my experience. Obviously I'm not sponsored with any of the products I refer here. It's just the ones I bought, used and my honest opinion about them.
IMG_0212 2.jpg
PS: I'm sure the former owner hired some proffesionals to paint Belle Bottom las time but it's always a good idea ti give a look at the boat during the process and make sure the work is made correctly... if thin the last bottom paint they did'nt used a such a thick layer of putty this probably never had happened...
Anyway on my research to fix my keel cracks I found a very good youtube chanel that was very helpuful for my repairs. It's called Refit and sail and in this episode he resume exactly what I didsb to mine....
Hope this will be useful to someone
Fair winds to all, be safe
First of all let me apologie for my bad english.
I'm portuguese and obvious english is my second language so I might make some gramar mistakes in my posts.
Anyway, I'm a recent owner of a Moody AC41 Classic and I'm working on her to make her ready for another season here in the Portuguese coast and maybe to the Mediterranean...
During my refit projects I found a crack and some hallow blisters in the keel. I will try my best to report here the repairs I did to make her ready for a new bottom paint, maybe this can be useful for another fellow sailors.
During my inspections on Belle a beautiful Moody AC41 Classic parked on dry in my home marina (Sines in Portugal) I found some issues on the keel:
The bottom was in relatively good shape but i found some cracks in the keel. After some investigation I found these cracks were located precisely in the junction betwen the Iron an Lead part of the keel.
I was still just dreaming of owning this beautiful boat so I just researched in the web about it and tryed to find the owner to ask if he was interested in seling her and more important If I could aford it... After some months of romance I finally got in touch with the owner. We stard to negotiate and after some more months we finally agree on the sale. emidiatly after The sale agreement I started working on her keel.
First I nedded to know how much of it was damaged so I grind the fiberglass until I found solid metal.
It was a bit more deep than I suspected.
It seems somebody has made a very bad job the last time the keel was painted, It was probably already some oxidation on the iron at that time but it was neglected and simply put some tick fairing compound and painted above to look good.
The result was an increase on the oxidation that resulted in loosen particles that created the blisters. With the time and temperature diferences the blisters cracked and there was water intrusion and a more oxidation... that resulted in this holes. Thankfully this was in the Lead part of the keel. If it was on the iron part this oxidation could make serious rust and much more damage in the keel. Anyway I grinded all oxidated parts until I found shining metal. After that I used some rust converter in the iron part that transforms rust and protect the metal... I used Jenolite Rust Converter from Amazon. It seems a good quality product it turns in Black when reacts with rust , you can see in the upper parrt of the holes (iron part of the keel)
I continued this process in all Steel-Lead joint around the keel until no rust or oxidation was seen both in lead or in iron. I fill the holes with metal epoxy and then painted with 5 coats of epoxy hempel light primer. Hopefully I resolved the problem. We will see in the next haul out....
This is the final result for now: I will report again in the next haul out...
Note: I'm not a professional in this. I'm just trying to solve problems in my own boat and sharing my experience. Obviously I'm not sponsored with any of the products I refer here. It's just the ones I bought, used and my honest opinion about them.
IMG_0212 2.jpg
PS: I'm sure the former owner hired some proffesionals to paint Belle Bottom las time but it's always a good idea ti give a look at the boat during the process and make sure the work is made correctly... if thin the last bottom paint they did'nt used a such a thick layer of putty this probably never had happened...
Anyway on my research to fix my keel cracks I found a very good youtube chanel that was very helpuful for my repairs. It's called Refit and sail and in this episode he resume exactly what I didsb to mine....
Hope this will be useful to someone
Fair winds to all, be safe
