newbridge venturer

[Dan the man]

Hi, I tried to post a couple of threads yesterday, but they dont seem to be showing.
My Newbridge Venturer has been laid up for the pasy 8 years or so on a trailer and the hull is slightly deformed, pressed inwards, around the back of the starboard bilge keel.

I saw a post relating to the same problem with another venturer. I would be keen to know if this is typical of these boats? and also what can one do to remedy the problem.
Im guessing extra stringers or more grp.
It is right at the rear of the starboar bilge keel and if I lift the stern the hull comes out.
There is a broken stringer in the middle of the keel area which I am getting repaired.

There are no obvious cracks in the gel coat or glass inside, so Im guessing its just a built in weakness.

Any ideas? Dan

 

[misterg]

Hi, I tried to post a couple of threads yesterday, but they dont seem to be showing.

Hi Dan,

There's a delay before your first post shows so that it can be approved by the moderators - it's there now

My Newbridge Venturer has been laid up for the pasy 8 years or so on a trailer and the hull is slightly deformed, pressed inwards, around the back of the starboard bilge keel.....

{from the other post}

I was told, or read, that these boats suffer a similar problem to that of westerlies, Centaur era, in that the bilge keels cna work loose and eventually need strengthening and re bedding, right?

We used to own a Newbridge Venturer, and I've looked at several:

The bilge keel attachment changed sometime - the earlier boats had keels bolted to GRP stubs, whereas the later ones had keels with a flange on top which sat in moulded recesses in the hull.

The first one we looked at had the older type of keel and had signs of stress cracking in the GRP stub and the 'depression' behind the stbd keel. I spoke to another owner who'd had the keel stubs repaired at some expense, but other than that, I'm not aware of any problems with the keel attachment per-se.

I think it's inevitable that bolted on keels will need re-bedding at some point (whatever the boat).

I saw a couple of other boats with the "depression" - This area of the hull derives its stiffness from its shape (no internal stiffening), but it's almost flat so it doesn't take much flex in the hull for this to snap from being slightly convex to slightly concave. There's a lot of force in this area when the boat is on a trailer with the skeg unsupported - you can imagine what it must be like on a bumpy road.

If the bulkhead bonding comes loose, it allows the hull to flex more easily, and makes this more likely to happen. It happens on the stbd side because the galley cupboard bulkheads, etc. stiffen the hull on the port side (by accident, rather than design, I think!). One boat we saw had one of the heads compartment (on stbd side) bulkheads extended to the hull in this area - I presumed from new, but boats we saw afterwards from a similar era didn't have this.

My 0.02p would be to check the bulkhead bonding (everywhere). If you find bits that have become un-bonded, or were just poorly done then I'd support the stern of the boat to take the depression out and renew / beef-up the bonding with epoxy & glass (assuming that there aren't any cracks in the gel coat). You might also want to thicken the hull in this area and/or add a stringer from the aft end of the reinforcement around the stbd keel to the main bulkhead, but you'll need to cut away the moulded in sole in the heads for access. I did this, and added a "frame" (?) from beyond this stringer, across the centre line to the fore/aft divider under the companionway steps as a precaution on our boat. You may not be able to do this if you have an inboard engine. Whatever you do, make sure to taper off any stiffening or thickening so that you don't create hard spots on the hull.

I also want to know about the rudder stock and skeg area, as this was also highlighted as a weak point.

I am thrilled with this new boat, I refer to her, to people not familiar with the breed as a little Moody, having come from Bill dixon.

I don't recall anything about the skeg - they're bolted on, and the fixings are relatively easy to access from the cockpit locker. I think the rudder stock bearing at the bottom of the skeg can wear (I suppose it will on any boat), but it wasn't a problem on ours.

I'm glad you're pleased with the boat - I have fond memories of ours - it's amazing what can be crammed into 22'

Feel free to send me a PM if you think I can be of any assistance.

Andy