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Originally posted by joearcht

I dealt with this problem a few years ago also.
It is a large subject area which I will try to condense into a short subject, but feel free to contact me and ask questions if you want to delve further into this area.

First I presume you have the boat on a trailer.
Second you need to realize there is a outer hull and a inner hull with a "hidden" bilge between the two.
The original boat has no real good way to inspect the bilge.
On my boat built in 1985 there is an inspection port under the starboard berth on the forward bulkhead. I don't know if this was factory or a previous owner modification.

Some people have drilled holes in the hull to let water out and patch the holes back. I had a major aversion to doing that so I installed a 6" inspection port under the cooler storage area below the hatchway.
This is a good way to slide a suction holes into the bilge and remove water. Better still if on a trailer, jack up the front of the trailer and tilt the boat aft so all of the water runs to this inspection port and wet vac it out. Every time I haul the boat I do this just to make sure. My boat leaks at the gunwales when I let it heal over to much or too long and some of that water ends up in the bilge.

So, why do you want a dry bilge? Other than the normal odor control etc, it appears that most of these boats have a plywood filler between the outer and inner hull where the keel is attached. In essence the keel bolts go through this filler and the nuts you see in the cabin floor. I've heard of neglected boats having the filler rot out which is a serious issue I think, so I've worked hard to avoid letting water stay in my bilge for long.

Now to the crack. I hope it is not due to a rotted filler, but my boat cracked after a serious knockdown in a 30 knot wind. Sails in the water which inevitable means my keel came out of the water.

My solution was to grind out the original filler material which I think was polyester. I took both the keel and the bottom of the boat down to gel coat best I could. Then I filled the joint again with a product West Marine sells called Six10 Epoxy. I comes in a tube with a mixing head and was relatively easy to apply and shape. I used a caulking tool to help tool it into shape.

The end results looked very professional (IMHO) and has held up well to a couple of seasons so far. Next haul will be in August for another inspection and bottom paint.

Hope that helps!

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