Leaky keel bolt on Sadler 32

Robin said:
I have used talcum powder dusted around with some success in the past as a leak tell tale. Always found leak sources never came from keel bolts but the damp often ended up close by them, therefore creating the puckered arse syndrome.:ambivalence:
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Yes, we were convinced that our forward keel bolts were leaking, the washers beneath the nuts were rusty and rust stains were evident in that section of the bilge when we bought the boat. Eventually we realised that the cause was water from the heads, minor toilet leaks etc., that ran straight over the sole boards and into the forward bilge compartment.
 
Excuse my ignorance, but how can you draw one bolt? I thought they were cast into the keel and you had to remove all the nuts and washers and then lift the hull clear of the bolt ends.
 
eddystone said:
Excuse my ignorance, but how can you draw one bolt? I thought they were cast into the keel and you had to remove all the nuts and washers and then lift the hull clear of the bolt ends.
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No, that's the old method used with lead keels, sometimes with a hex head and sometimes the stud bent into a J. With iron keels the bolts are studs, with tapped holes in the cast iron. By locking two nuts onto the studs inside the boat it is (hopefully) possible to extract one at a time.
 
vyv_cox said:
No, that's the old method used with lead keels, sometimes with a hex head and sometimes the stud bent into a J. With iron keels the bolts are studs, with tapped holes in the cast iron. By locking two nuts onto the studs inside the boat it is (hopefully) possible to extract one at a time.
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Judging by the photo, it will probably become apparent if water is coming it as soon as the nut and washer plate is removed, so maybe not even necessary to ty and get the stud out. As you said earlier if the water is coming up that way it would be rusty, particularly as there is rust on the plate.
 
Slight diversion but as this is a thread on keel attachment someone might know the answer. A couple of times while the boat is in the cradle I've attempted to make good the line of beading where the keel joins the hull. I believe this is a waste of time as the weight of the boat is compressing the joint - correct? You actually need to have the boat in slings long enough to a) scrape out the old; b) put a new bead of sealant in; c) wait for it to cure ; d) make good anti-fouling. I find yards are quite receptive to the suggestion that their hoist be hijacked for 24-48 hours so they can't put it to any paying use.
 
Not much you can do about the sealant / bedding compound actually compressed between the keel and the hull. But you can clean up the edges of the joint and then run a thin line of something like Sikaflex or CT1 along it. Smear it well into the joint with a finger. Leave to cure, repeat and or sand smooth and antifoul as usual.

Repeat every lift out where and when necessary.
 
vyv_cox said:
...By locking two nuts onto the studs inside the boat it is (hopefully) possible to extract one at a time.
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ISTR somewhere (here or on the Sadler technical forum) my asking about that technique and your suggesting in response that getting two nuts locked on to the studs might be very difficult, if not impossible. Insufficient room between the stringers etc. to get tools on them for adequate locking, rather than lack of thread, was I think your concern - but I might be wrong.

Please do not think I am complaining of inconsistency – it’s an unanswered question AFAIK, and like others I pay a lot of attention to your thoughts in these matters! I am just trying to put that ‘(hopefully)’ in context – and wondering if any intervening experience has made you more sanguine?
 
Firstly well done you have located a slight leak, this on its own is absolutely no reason to panic.
The condition of keel bolts is actually a separate issue and may have little to do with the leak.

However when was the last time you torqued up the keel bolt nuts, because by the look of it they have not seen a socket in a while.
Over time, with the boat in and out of the water, not to mention sailing, the keel or keels will work slightly, the bolts will stretch and the laminate will compress.
The sealant used when fitting the keel also degrades over time and you need only to have the slightest section fail to end up with a leak.

My boat had a similar leak around bolts 4 &5, just aft of the mid point of the keel.
I say leak, it was just a seep but like yours over a week or so it was noticeable.

First job was to check the studs so I double nutted and spun out one of the studs to check.
It was fine so that went back and I drew the other out and that stud was fine but wet.
Put that one back in and torqued up all the nuts which apart from the single aft one took between half to a full turn.
As I remember the leak stopped but she came out of the water shortly after this anyway and I dug, ground and cut away the joint between hull and keel and resealed using arbocol.

That was five years ago and no further issues.

I re torqued the nuts last year and most turned a flat or two but no more.

Where we've done this job on customers boats and we've had poor access we have had course to weld a nut to the top of the stud so we can extract it but most times we can get our air rattle gun on them and they move quite easily.
 
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Two weeks have passed and I'm happy to report that the keel bolts are currently ... bone dry, as judged by the blue paper. We've only been motoring in the light winds so not able to test the effect of beating but, from how things look at the moment, I'm leaving well alone over winter. Thanks to all for previous suggestions.
 
Thanks for reporting back. Did you torque up the bolts or do anything else? Or is the origin of the water a mystery still?
 
Hydrozoan said:
Thanks for reporting back. Did you torque up the bolts or do anything else? Or is the origin of the water a mystery still?
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No, I haven't touched anything. The origin is still a mystery - especially why small quantities of clear water appeared even when apparently dried thoroughly. Here's a theory: there was a fair amount of general dampness when I first discovered it as well as some pooling. I dried it as best I could and then sprayed some Boeshield T-9 around which puts a waxy covering on everything. This perhaps would have encouraged any residual damp to form another small pool. Vyv suggested a hypothesis for the last picture - that the blue paper was drawing the remaining water from between the flaking paint and the plate.

I'll be keeping an eye on it next season and will report back if there is anything significant.
 
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Thanks. Yes, I saw Vyv’s suggestion. But if it was from pooling of ‘general dampness’ or condensation, the origin of its strong saltiness remains a puzzle. If there were any possible route to the keel bolt area, residue from lifting the log or a weep from the heads would be obvious potential sources.

Anyway, it’s good to know it has not continued. Seeing any water inside brings out my inner pessimist: years ago when I first spent nights aboard in very cold weather (inches of snow on the deck) sans dehumidifier I thought the deck-hull seal was starting to fail. :rolleyes:
 
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As one subscribing to the theory that water is supposed to be on the outside of my boats, I have spent almost a lifetime chasing down the exceptions. Whilst I too have worried about water around a rusty looking keel bolt head/nut/washer it has NEVER yet proven to be the source and even when traced to a leaky freshwater tank tasted vaguely salty. I had one ultra watertight boat that when driven very hard dipped it's stern enough to allow leakage from the top of the rudder tube, normally way above the waterline. When it did this whilst also heeled over the small amounts of water missed the central line to the bilge sumpand wandered betwixt hull and an inner engine room area liner. Once moored, mopped and patted dry it could seep slowly for weeks catching all the paper towel and talcum powder tell tales, the join between liner and inner hull providing a nice capillary route to confusion. I still like to find dust in the bilges such that a dry-vacuum is all that is ever required and the wet -vac stays in it's box. Our latest boats have had air conditioning which has condensate to drain off. Even with a tray under each unit water accumulates and one by one we have plumbed these to automatic shower sump/pump boxes. EVen then there is some condenstation that forms where it is not caught by the under unit trays and can drip where it should not on occasion. Always in the end it would find a keel bolt/nut/washer area to settle and scare the bejesus out of me, not least because my last boat had multiple inner structural liners, as on Cheeky RAfiki that lost it's keel mid Atlantic ( cue fanfare of trumpets from Brent Swain, steel boat fanatic:disgust:)

Still I was glad to move on from my very first plywood boats to relatively dry plastic bath tubs and worn knees from dabbing away the drops:nonchalance:.
 
vyv_cox said:
On the odd occasion when I have tasted water in the bilge it has always been salty ...
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Robin said:
... even when traced to a leaky freshwater tank tasted vaguely salty ...
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Me too – hence my question at #5. But the OP and others assured us that they could readily tell salt from fresh, and I was reluctant to argue the point. Perhaps it’s psychological ... :)
 
Hydrozoan said:
Me too – hence my question at #5. But the OP and others assured us that they could readily tell salt from fresh, and I was reluctant to argue the point. Perhaps it’s psychological ... :)
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I'm fairly confident I can taste the difference between salty water and fresh water but that doesn't mean that salty water came (recently) from outside the boat. Fresh water can add to old hygroscopic salt crystals or old saturated brine where there has been previous evaporation. to give a salty tasting water.
 
Poey50 said:
I'm fairly confident I can taste the difference between salty water and fresh water but that doesn't mean that salty water came (recently) from outside the boat. Fresh water can add to old hygroscopic salt crystals or old saturated brine where there has been previous evaporation. to give a salty tasting water.
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Forgive my humour! I'm genuinely pleased you have no immediate problem. :encouragement:
 
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