My Keel Joint

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by Rod Headlee

Tha Catalina smile is pretty common. I guess that would be the Pearson smile. We jst ground it out a bit and filled it with 5200. You can check for leaks on the hard by putting water in your bilge. If it doesn't leak out and the bolts look good don't worry about it. During one haulout the yard glassed over it. We put about 20k miles on it after that, no problems.

Hard to tell , but this appears to me to be the keel casting not fitting the hull shape, rather than a crack (smile) in the fiberglass. The gap is heavily filled in one picture. My guess is it never fit or some damage was done and poorly repaired.

Possibly a bad grounding /loose keel that bent the lead on those thin ends when the keel moved. (if it's lead)
The good news is those thin bent ends are just to fair the shape to the hull really.... right?

[Rol1964]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

Hard to tell , but this appears to me to be the keel casting not fitting the hull shape, rather than a crack (smile) in the fiberglass. The gap is heavily filled in one picture. My guess is it never fit or some damage was done and poorly repaired.

Possibly a bad grounding /loose keel that bent the lead on those thin ends when the keel moved. (if it's lead)
The good news is those thin bent ends are just to fair the shape to the hull really.... right?

Those P26 keels are iron. May be the last time the bottom was prepped, the fairing application wasn't done quite well enough and is starting to shrink and crack...? I believe rebedding that keel is a royal PITA.
...standing by for updates...