Keel Repair for IP38 Island Packet

[bigbrotherjohn]

Hello All
I am getting ready for the season and set out to do some clean up of previous patches that were done to the bottom of my keel that looked like they weren't in good shape.
While grinding out some of patched areas I notices water weeping out, and grinding a little further it became a steady drip.

The boat is an Island Packet IP38, it is a full keel, with encapsulated ballast.

I am looking for any suggestions for the best way to repair. I am concerned about the water dripping out because it seems like it will take a very long time to dry completely.

My current best idea for a plan is:
1) Grind away any additional damaged material
2) Wait for dripping to stop and keel to dry
3) Fill with thickened Epoxy (WestSystems 105 with 410 filler)
4) Coat with barrier coating, Interlux 2000E
5) Bottom paint and launch!

Does that seem like a reasonable plan?

[DougR]

If it was me I would grind a taper into the surrounding glass and apply several layers of mat/roving or 1708 & epoxy after filling the void with thickened epoxy.
Then barrier coat, etc.

[Onthewater222]

A good wet/dry vacuum cleaner will help draw the water out

[Tsuru]

Originally Posted by DougR

If it was me I would grind a taper into the surrounding glass and apply several layers of mat/roving or 1708 & epoxy after filling the void with thickened epoxy.
Then barrier coat, etc.

Yep, Grind out and bevel, dry, replace the missing glass, fill, barrier coat. Putting a vacuum bag over the damaged area with a small dedicated vacuum pump will speed up the dry out. Like the vacuum recommendation above but a vacuum pump will pull a lower pressure for a longer time. Gravity and warm dry weather are also your friends.

If interested I can go into the details on how I’d put a vac bag on this and the materials needed.

[Cheechako]

If you want to get it really dry you can tent a small air conditioner to the damage area and it will dry things out deeply. Maybe tape visqueen to the hull around the area leaving one small opening for air to exit.
That's quite a "ding"!

[SailingHarmonie]

Originally Posted by bigbrotherjohn

Hello All
My current best idea for a plan is:
1) Grind away any additional damaged material
2) Wait for dripping to stop and keel to dry
3) Fill with thickened Epoxy (WestSystems 105 with 410 filler)
4) Coat with barrier coating, Interlux 2000E
5) Bottom paint and launch!

Does that seem like a reasonable plan?

Your Step #3 is completely inadequate. Filling with thickened epoxy is not going to do the job. This needs to be done with proper glass cloth laminate. Thickened epoxy will quickly crack and fall out.

If it was me... I'd rip out ALL of that old repair, which has already proven itself as prone to failure. Do it right, treat this as the structural part of the boat that it is! I know that is expensive, but repeating the mistakes of the previous owner is never a good plan.

[Bowdrie]

Not directly related to the keel repair, however;
IIRC, the IPs have a length of stainless bar stock that has a weldment at the forward end which is bolted to the aft end of the keel, and the aft end of the bar stock has a socket weldment to accept the lower end of the rudder stock.
The rudder creates a great lever arm on that bar that's always working to loosen the bolted-up forward end of that bar.
That bolted joint over time can start letting in water, it's something to check.
I've forgotten if IP poured foam or resin over those bolts though.
From the pics it appears that a quantity of thickened resin was poured into the keel cavity and the ballast casting was set into it.
If so, there might be some voids that are still releasing water, hard to tell.

[bigbrotherjohn]

Thank you everyone for the replies, all of the suggestions are very helpful.

Thank you to Doug, Tsuru and SailingHarmonie for all pointing out that I should rebuild this area with cloth or mat rather than just with filler. I will grind out the edges to a taper to prepare for that.

I have attached a shop vac and have flushed with acetone several times, what was a steady drip is now approximately a "once per hour" drip. The fiberglass is dry but it seems like there is still some moisture between the fiberglass and the ballast material, or the ballast itself is retaining some water (the ballast is concrete with pieces of steel or iron).

I understand that my resin will not cure and the repair will not hold if there is water dripping into the repair, but I worry that if the whole ballast area contains water it will just slowly re-saturate the area near my repair.

Would it make sense to seal off the ballast with marine-tex or something like that before starting to work with fiberglass and epoxy on top of that?

Thank you all for the help.

[Flyrod1]

IPYOA.com is a good forum of other IP owners. Perhaps someone on there has dealt with this.

[bigbrotherjohn]

Thank you all for the helpful suggestions.

I was able to complete the repair after several days of drying everything out. I cut back all the damaged area with a grinder and made a taper and was able to glass over the damaged area with some 1708 cloth and West Systems 105/205.

Then we did several coats of Interlux before bottom paint and we launched yesterday.

Happy sailing!