water on Floor around keel

[mwheat321]

I have a 1978 26' Chrysler This is my first year sailing it. I noticed water coming in around the rutter but I have since stopped that leak. I an now having water soaking up the carpet around the keel. Does anyone have an answer where it might be coming from and if so how do I fix it?

[EmergencyExit]

Couple things come to mind - a leak around the keel pin will cause that. Or a loose connection between the keel pin fitting and the hull.

Check for any water at all in that bilge area under the stern - that area extends under the rear cabin sole, and water will soak up thru there surprisingly easy, esp if the rear cabin sole has cracked. Also can flow further forward over the ballast area at the keel head. Some C26's have concrete and lead pellets poured for ballast. Some have lead bars in foam - if the foam gets soaked it almost never dries out.

Check our site at :
http://www.home.bellsouth.net/personalp ... P-sailtalk

click on "post katrina restoration", then "cabin sole" then "got water in bilge" for some pics on that area.

Good luck !

[Windward]

Beau's right: start by checking the swing keel pendant's through hull and hose. The keel pin on the 26 is outside the boat, although Jim Craighead (?) found that the bolts that hold the swing keel shoe to the hull were leaking on his boat.

If you see water seeping around the aft portion of the keel trunk and the through hull's not the problem, it's possible that the swing keel cable broke at some stage, causing the swing keel to slam down violently into the aft end of the keel trunk and cracking it. The aft end of the trunk is a double layer of glass encapsulating a 1/4" aluminum shell, so there may be little interior evidence of the damage.

I had that problem on Windward, and confirmed it by hauling the boat and lowering the keel enough to see up into the trunk. The fix was to chisel away the interior portion of the keel trunk's aft face, remove the aluminum, chisel and grind the inner shell (facing the keel surface) to remove the cracks, then repair with a lot of epoxy, kevlar, woven roving, etc. The work's up on Windward's site... don't have the link to the actual photo handy.

If the keel trunk's the problem and you just ignore it, the plywood under the cabin sole, and possibly along both sides of the keel, will eventually rot and need to be replaced too.

Here's hoping it's just the through-hull....

Jeff