Ttsaang
Veteran Member
My boat has been on the hard for the whole winter and I was doing some painting of the bilge area and was rinsing some water into the bilge. while walking on the outside of the boat I noticed that towards the end of the keel below where the shaft comes out that water has been seeping from the keel. (you can see the drip streaks in the pictures) As you can see in the pictures I scraped down to the fibreglass and I can see a small crack that the water appears to be coming from. I vacuumed all of the water out of the bilge and would check the bilge periodically and there would be a small amount of water in the bilge again, like it was wicking up from the bottom of the keel into the bottom of bilge area. Over the last few days I've kept checking on it and sucking the small amount of water out, probably 15 times. It seems to have stopped and the weeping from the keel seems to have stopped. Now truth be told I went through this last year when the boat was on the hard and I ground down the crack on the outside of the keel and patched it with thickened epoxy. When the boats in the water there always seems to be an inch or so of water in the keel but it never really changes. I'm trying to figure out where this water is coming from and the best way to stop it and seal / repair the hairline crack in the keel. I'm not sure how the keel is constructed or if there's a void in it or maybe foam. Is there a void in the keel filled with water? Hopefully this makes sense. I've attached some pictures of the area on the keel as well as the lower bilge area. The bilge drops down in a narrow channel.