15 The repairs to our damaged sailboat have begun.
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- Опубліковано 17 чер 2023
- Hey guys! After a brief vacation from boat work we’re back at it again in a big way. Today we don our scrubs and wield our instruments to perform a surgery we haven’t been trained for, on a patient whose survival is vital to our own. Join us as we make the first cut and see what we discover as we peel back the layers in this week’s episode, now LIVE!
In this episode, we begin the process of grinding away the damaged fiberglass around our keel and discover delamination and a cracked hull.
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Please wear a mask. Those microfibers fiberglass dust is not good for your lungs. Remove the keel for a better look of the underside of the keel/hull joint. That delamination may be farther out than you can see right now.
Thanks for commenting! As you probably saw in our last episode, we are definitely wearing masks now. 😁 We're contacting Hunter Marlow for more guidance on the repairs and will of course keep you all posted!
Alright. I think the mountain the ripoff boat yard planted in our minds is turning into more of a molehill. Fingers crossed. I can't wait to see what next week reveals. You guys take care. May the Force Be With You! Live Long and have fewer boat repairs! 😎
🖖 Thank you! Time will tell if we are doing the right thing, but Flow has gone on her merry way for the last 25+ years with Hunter's original design and layup and hasn't had any problems, so our hope is that we're making her stronger and better than before!
You need to drop the keel. Put new keel bolts in, reglass the grid, and reassembly the whole thing. You can't get to the real damage with the boat resting on the keel. Simply put , the keel has separated from the hull. The only real fix is to separate the two, clean everything up, and put in new glass.
While I agree.
Wearing proper eye protection is also critical when using a grinder.
Maybe the bolts are flexing being rusted out to a smaller diameter. I'd take the whole keel of.
We have been told by many people that the keel bolts are very likely loose and need to be torqued. From what we can see on the inside, the bolts look to be in good shape, but of course we can't see underneath. From my understanding the bolts are resined in, so dropping the keel means tearing all that out.
Great work, you will make it.
Thank you!
The shop vac is great but get the cheapest drop cloth and pitch a tent to seal off EVERTHING walls and other cabins. Make a Dexter clean room LOL. Get a strong fan to flow air through the enclosure and mate it to a a/c filter to reduce the dust. If not you will be inching for months.
You wont find how deep the cracks go while your boat is sitting on it's keel. If the tabs are delaminated then you will probably find that the grid has also dropped from the hull. If this is the case then the cracks will appear again because of your bottom heavy keel which wants to swing like a pendulum when under load.
You can by yourself a little minicamra withe(light) conected to a "hose" and use that in TINY spaces : )
So glad to see you guys getting her fixed. And, while it looks like it is a LOT of work, it doesn't quite look as bad as it could have been? You'll be back in the water in no time!
Thank you for the positive vibes! We're still digging into it and haven't uncovered everything yet, but it does look like it may be a pretty straightforward fix, fingers crossed!🤞🤞🤞
After reading all the comments I hope you guys listen to some of these guys. Good luck
Thank you for the well wishes, we are taking the advice of those with more experience than us to heart!
Now that you have some of the cracks ground away have the travel lift pick up boat to take pressure off of keel and look for more problem areas.
The amount of side to side movement the keel had in the earlier video says to me that there's more going on here for that to happen.
You don't want to do these small repairs without looking at the big picture.
What happens when the keel is having that pressure from above AND are standing tiltet when you " glas it"? Fiasko?
Hi, please use epoxy, not polyester, grind back at least 6" either side , leaving no gelcoat only clean fibreglass. You would be safer to reglass the whole inner section of the grid . I know it's dusty horrible work , but be safe . Best idea as your living in the boat, tent up the area your working with pvc sheet , then put vac tube into tent . Your doing well .
Yes. Good advice.
Thank you for the advice! We are grinding out a lot more, it is slow going because the prep work and tear down/cleanup take a long time, and with above average temps here right now the heat index is over 100 degrees during the heat of the day which makes working in a full suit difficult. The actual time Cade is able to spend grinding each day is limited. But as I'm sure you saw in our most recent video, we did tent the area and have even expanded to put dropcloths over the settees, table and countertops! Our plan is to use epoxy with 1708 glass.
Hi, just to let everyone know . This is a hunter not a beneteau/jeaneau. The French boats have a bonded keel grid , the issue is impact which breaks the bonding adhesive. The impaction area is large ,usually breaking bond back to outer areas . Hunter use a full tabbing system . Sadly in this case they put board blocks down for a bilge cover . This should of been done after the grid was tabbed in , obviously a shortcut was taken and this wasn't done , giving this boat a weak point . What I would say is that all compartments to be checked to see if any repairs have taken place before.. If there has then redo properly to be safe . There should be 9 or 12 grid compartments. Do not remove the keel , but do check torque and if they turn to tighten at all replace studs . As a safe measure after doing all this , glass over stud heads but wrap studs and nuts first to keep epoxy out of threads . I hope this is of use to you .
Thank you so much, we have checked all the other compartments thoroughly and most of them have no other cracks, no areas that have been previously repaired and all tabs are intact. Three bilges in the keel well only appear to have some damage, the one we started with in the videos has the worst of the damage. The bilges fore and aft of that one have damage as well. We plan to torque the keel bolts before we begin re-glassing and will reassess if the studs turn. Hopefully that is not the case.🤞 Thank you for taking the time to explain this and please always feel free to reach out with advice and wisdom!
you are doing a one sided patch....even with using an epoxy resin, which adheres much better than polyester, you need a large area for bonding. See as boats are built most use a laminating resin which doesnt harden between layers. Once fiberglass is hardened you only get a mechanical bond....so with that being said going up the grid walls a few inches maybe not enough to tab into. I watched your guy run a meter over the outside, he was checking for moisture, I would check inside also. You want that area inside to be as dry as possible, when you took off the wood it was dark which means moisture. I would also make sure when I did the final grind inside I would use a heavy grit such as 60. you want the area to be full of deep ridges for the glass to bond to....bonding new glass to a smooth surface looses bonding. now you see the 30k cost...and you need to check the whole bottom inside all along the grid, that crack cant be just localized in my opinion....and whats your thoughts on the keel joint? will you guys be addressing that? be interesting to see the current torque of the keel bolts...but then again that may open another can of worms..after another quick look at 19.54 you say it wasnt tabbed is there any compound between the grid and hull? most use a compound that adheres the liner to the hull, or in your case the grid to the hull....
wear a 3M n95 demo respirator when sanding/grinding. also water cooled tyvek is a thing - get some coolpax vests. they take ice for cooling.
also you need to add more stands and grind away with the keel not supporting the boat. use the yard forklift to lift it. take keel off and grind. then glass it and readd weight to keel. then close it. i would go with 2" solid glass inside minimum. you havent found the biggest crack yet. you havent fixed anything without keel removal from boat. grind once, cry once. do it right.
👍😎
Integrated keels. Best idea....
That seems to be the overwhelming consensus! If and when we do decide to upgrade to a different boat, we will probably give stronger consideration to an integrated keel.
you've got this
Love it never quit, cant wait to sea the smiles when you get them sails up and relax.
Looks like your luck is starting to change for the better. Awesome
Thank you, here's hoping!🤞
Thank you for talking me out off buying a boat love the sea but next time I want a sea adventure I will hire a boat love your channel
LOL LOL
Thank you! Hahaha I can see how it would be much more enjoyable (and probably less costly...) to hire a boat and do all the sailing and none of the boat work! People always told us that sailing is just fixing your boat in exotic locations, we just haven't gotten to the exotic locations part yet! 🤔
I am assuming that you have been doing all of your inspections with Flow resting on her keel and stands. Is there any way you could inspect her while she is suspended with the keel off the ground. This may show some more areas where the grid is separating from the hull. I would also like to say that I think your surveyor should have checked your keel bolts during the inspection process and they would have at least seen the oil in the bilges. (P,PC & W) Pig, Pork Chop & Whiskey,Jaunita and I sure hope you found all of the damage and that you are able to make all the necessary repairs and get back to what you were wanting to do all along. SAILING. We all wish you the best of luck and hope that this doesn’t deter you from reaching your dreams. Thank you for sharing your ups and downs and you should know we are all pulling for you
Good insights tbh. Pretty much illustrates why the shallower Draft the Bolt on Keel is, the greater the reduction in leverage moments are which reduces the strain on the Keel to Hull Hoin, as well as the nasty stretching effect on the Fixing Bolts , which gets compounded by Re Torquing them, which keeps increasing the stretch abd weakening them. No idea what the Draft of your boat is (just started watching) but it looks as thoughnit is a shallow enough Dradt to place it wellminside the Safety zone, where reasinable damage from grounding can be taken, aithout any extensive enough to cause a sinking. For me, the Maximum Draft of a Bolt on Keel so that healthy Safety Zone Exists, is a 5ft Draft as a decent Rule of Thumb. I have Been pretty much exclusively a Long Keel or Bilge Keel Sailing Boat Cruiser, but would not Rule out a Decent Shallow Draft Cruiser with a Bolt on Keel as they are definitely Safe enough as far as I'm concerned. Anything deeper than 5ft Sraft, to me, is by default restricted to areas like the Mediterranean. Well, I don't want my Cruising to be that restricted tbh, but a lot of people are very happy just sailing in the Mediterranean, and good luck to them. Best Wishes and Fair Winds. Bob in Wales. 👍⛵️✨️✨️✨️
Can’t wait to see you in July! You two are an inspiration! Now hurry the hell up so we can get a beer! ❤
Keep the faith, you're both doing great.
Personally, I liked the music choices..❤
Thank you so much! I feel like the video might be a little empty without some music. Glad you liked it!
mask for fibreglassing - see SV Lynx for their dyi positive pressure respirator mask that cost $250 - make contact and see if they can assist with the 3d printed part
fantastic !!! not so bad after all just remedial work soon be ready to finally sail into the deep blue sea
Nobody curious about the oil drum that was sloshing around that bilge for how many years? Was it actually oil or just funk? Either way.. something going on.. 🙏
Thankfully it does look like it was mostly just funk, with a little bit of oil. But yes, still something that needs to be addressed!
Like the Evan’s on Expedition Evans would you be better served to drop the keel and fix the keel mounts? It may prove to be safer. Or I’m I incorrect and it’s that bad?
Our damage is slightly different than Expedition Evans, I'm sure you probably saw in our most recent video the explanation of our damages as we understand them. We did lift the boat in the slings and didn't find any other areas of separation or new cracks, thank goodness, the rest of our grid appears to be intact. From our understanding, the keel bolts are resined in, so if we were to drop the keel we would have to tear all that out. Yikes! Hopefully that is not needed.🤞
God bless you. Remember to take care of yourselves. Take a break if you need to and come back stronger. If a marriage can survive this it can survive anything.
Thank you so much for the kind words! ❤️ We're taking it one day at a time.
Great work! I would definitely call in a pro at certain intervals to inspect your progress and provide guidance if that’s an option. Keep grinding! ( pun intended)
That first repair was an air void when the hull was laminated,poor work by Hunter.I can see the crack where the hull turns down to the keel above where you grinded first.Very easy to see even on my tiny iPhone screen.it’s right in the corner or radius.
What a nightmare. Whoever surveyed the boat should be slapped around a bit. His/her Incompetence could’ve cost you your lives.
While we wouldn't recommend our surveyor for a number of reasons, it's hard to know if the damage to the keel existed at the time of the survey. It is possible, but we also weathered hurricane Nicole in the boat and got pushed around in the mud quite a bit, many seem to think this would have been enough stress on the keel to cause the damage.
Check out Expedition Evans had the same problem
Face shield and the very least a disposable mask! This is from years of grinding glass... Goodonyas...go get'm tiger (s)!
Grinding fibreglass without a mask on is suicide, even outside
as @ robert ... said below - You need to drop the keel - see early episodes of expedition evans where they did a similar repair
Just started watching you guys enjoy your videos. I have a 43 legend hunter.
Thanks for subscribing! Glad to have you along, it's always nice to talk to other Hunter owners!
Your boat had the same problem as Expedition Evans
We have followed Expedition Evans since the beginning of their journey and they're a huge inspiration for us! It looks like our damage is not quite as bad as theirs, thankfully. But we have learned a lot from watching them repair their salvaged boat.
is the keel sitting on something solid... that would change the crack
Please turn that back ground music down or better still off! Other wise l love your video content,very interesting
Thank you and we appreciate your feedback! We've had others mention this too, so we'll make adjustments to the music and drop the music track when we're talking.
Expedition Evans had the same problem, if you have time see how much they ground back on their hull grid. Different boat and different amount of damage, but they also took the keel off. I would like to see the grid go down in to the bottom of the keel box .
But its your boat and i cannot see the whole area of damage. You seem to be in a yard where there are enough experienced people to help you. Grinding is the pits inside a yacht, hope you get to the end of it soon.
Thank you! We love Expedition Evans, we've followed them since the beginning of their journey and they have been a huge inspiration for us! Since our last episode we have found that we have a lot more prep work to do before we start re-glassing and will likely extend our repairs all the way down to the bottom of the keel box as you mentioned. We did hang Flow in the slings to get a good look at any damage that may have been concealed by resting on her keel, but at this point we don't believe it will be necessary to drop the keel. Of course we are learning as we go, so we could be wrong.
Hello from Australia, I don't know what your timeline is, but I am very worried that you have missed something.
With such huge sideways movement of the keel you should be finding more damage not just small little cracks. have you checked out Expedition Evans channel on their grid rebuild, maybe different boat but principal the same. Please do not take lightly the repairs as yours and your wife's live's depend on them and as a new subscriber i wish you fair winds and following seas Good Luck
I ground out halfway up my grid sidewall on my Hunter 410 and about 16 inches below the crack and delam because a mechanical bond is different than a chemical bond. It's also very important to do a bonding test with your repair material to make sure she bites into the cured, mature factory glass. I used unwaxed GP polyester resin for buildup and waxed on the top layer with peelply but before application of the resin I applied Bio-Lock 9000 and did not wipe with acetone because that just spreads contaminates and does not promote adhesion. Good luck, kids. Fair fumes!
@needwindinmysails6349 Thanks for subscribing! Yes, we are continuing to dig into it and we have found some cracks in the hull. The repairs will likely take us considerably longer than we thought (as we should have known- double the amount of time and money you think it will take!). We haven't dropped the keel but we lifted the boat in the slings to look for anything that might have been concealed by resting on the keel. We'll go into our findings in more detail in this Sunday's episode, and we always welcome feedback from our viewers. If something doesn't seem right, feel free to speak up and we thank you for it!
@thinkcasting3182 Thank you for the info! I have to admit this is still all Greek to me, but I'm saving this comment to discuss with the guys doing the work. 😊 Out of curiosity, what was your reason for choosing polyester resin over epoxy?
@@forloveofwind with a mechanical bond it's very important to do a test. Use a variety of resins, let them cure for a few days then attempt to break the mechanical bond with force(chisel, pry bar, etc) and try to separate your test patch from the hull. Whichever bond is the strongest will be evident. That way you have physical proof of the bond strength based on your particular hull chemistry. It will give you peace of mind which is important for a DIY. In my hull GP Polyester won.
Be interesting to see the 'crack' that was on the outside that you started picking at in the early video. The large 'hull' crack you were grinding at the end how far does that go? Didn't seem to really see the whole length of it in the video.
We'll get back to the crack on the outside of the hull in a coming episode, the boatyard doesn't want us to continue grinding on the outside without renting some specialized equipment to contain the dust 😬 so we're focusing on getting the inside done for now. Some of the areas we originally thought were cracks in the hull now appear to be delamination around the tabs, though it looks like we still may have at least one crack that isn't very long. We just broke our second grinder so will hopefully know more this afternoon once we replace it and clear away the dust! Then we can get some better footage of what we're dealing with.
Assume you will wiggle the keel to see if it still moves or there are more cracks?
I go under the “might as wells” theory. Might as well grind it all at the outside hull /keel intersection to be sure you don’t die at sea! If this were an airplane, what would you do??
Damn this is a big deal….fixing the visual “broken” areas is one thing, but what caused it, hate to see all this work done and the cracks return that would be so disheartening. Keep plugging along you two can do this!
am pretty sure this was a long time event small cracks just gradually getting worse so my guess is once found the ends of the cracks that is it all done for a long long time
Thank you for the encouragement! ❤️ We have heard that it could be small cracks gradually getting worse over time as gatecrasher said, in which case the damage would have existed at the time of the survey. Some also think it could have happened when we weathered the hurricane in the barge canal at Cape Canaveral because we were pushed around in the mud quite a bit that night. Our hope is that when it's all said and done, the boat will be even stronger than the day she was built!
@@forloveofwind glad that both of you are wearing masks now…good luck with this project and looking forward to your weekly adventures on FLOW!
I would say your looking at whole keel off and completely overhauled as you have that weight in keel you very easy lose it if you just try and patch it as the old saying do it right do it once
Thanks for commenting! We're still trying to assess the extent of the damage and still have a considerable amount of prep work to do before we can begin repairs. Of course, in all of this our main concern is that we don't compromise our safety at any cost.
Is it my imagination or does your mast support post have a bend in it about where the table height is? It could be the camera lense / angle, but if it is bent you need to sort that out too while you're messing with the keel.
you noticed that also...good eyes.
I think it was the camera. It seemed straight when he stood up. But looked bent when he was sitting next to it.
Thanks for mentioning! I'm happy to say this was a case of camera distortion and our support post is straight. Whew! I did go back and review the video to see what you were seeing and I examined our post because my first thought was 'oh dear Lord, not ANOTHER major structural issue!' 🤣 Happy to report that part of the boat *seems to be* in good shape! 👍
Bonjour mes pirates. Les travaux de reconstruction ont commencé et même si travailler au fond d'un voilier n'est pas vraiment agréable vous êtes sur la voie de la guérison. Courage les amis. De longues heures de travailler avec harassant vous attendent mais la liberté est au bout. Olivier.
Bonjour Olivier! Oui, je pense que ce sera amusant un jour, peut-être dans un an, lorsque nous naviguerons avec bonheur dans les eaux bleues, de regarder ces vidéos et de voir toutes les difficultés que nous avons dû traverser pour en arriver là. Cela nous fera vraiment apprécier où nous en sommes et jusqu'où nous en sommes! Mesha
I have no opinion on Hunter's build quality, but in my (non-professional) opinion some appalling engineering/construction decisions were made in the case of your boat.
To illustrate let me describe a more sound implementation of a hull-grid design. In this case a mid-80's Pearson. The Pearson grid is not open (as with your Hunter) but continuous with all non-vertical parts of the grid following the exact contour of the hull and doubling the structural thickness. The grid runs from the forward waterline to the aft waterline, and above the waterline on the sides (where the grid is heavily glassed to the hull). In the keel area both the grid and the hull dip down into a keel-stub. Consequently, the keel bolts go through both hull and grid (1.25" of FG) and the loads are fully transferred to both structures.
It appears that in your Hunter the keel is bolted only through the hull (how thick?).. There is no indication as to whether the Hunter grid was directly attached to the hull, with polyester or adhesive. To rely on a secondary attachment using a few layers of 3" wide glass tabbing to transfer the loads is ridiculous in my opinion. I appears to me the the keel stresses have broken the hull away from grid wherever the keel is attached. It is possible that latent cracks extend further than is currently visible.
To safely establish a lasting level of structural integrity, I believe you will have to do much more than you are proposing in this video. I do not know how far you have progressed with this repair in real-time, but I pray that you have taken a much more robust approach.
You might consider finding a way to [a] open the cracks between the hull and grid (perhaps using the travel-lift) and insert thickened epoxy, and [b] epoxy-glass the floor and high up the sides of each grid opening to recreate what Pearson did in their sailboats. In the process you probably should remove the keel bolts and backing plates. Glass right up to the bolts and as thickly as the bolt lengths will allow (keeping epoxy out of the threads). Then re-secure the keel bolts and backing plates through this double layer of FG. The only other option I can think of is to do the above after completely dropping the keel...
Please turn off the music when you are talking, or ideally completely, its driving me nuts.
Fair comment imho. Why do so many Sailing channels add silly Music ? It's a Real Turn off imho. If I ever do anything Social Media Sailing related, I'll probably be sticking with a Text or Audio Blog, if I even bother at all. 👍
Thanks for letting us know guys, we've had others mention this as well and we'll drop the music track when we're talking!
This is going to be a big expensive fix ,a lick and a promise ain’t going to get this resolved and certainly not by amateurs get some good advice from professionals and a plan to work towards
This is one of those times you need a real expert to come and advise you . I’m worried you haven’t uncovered half of the problem yet .
Stop the music I can't hear the tapes
Thanks for letting us know! We've had others mention this too, so we'll drop the music track while we're talking.
Man dont be fool grind all out. There is lot going on there hiden
You have done nowhere near enough grinding.
you are in denial. The problem is way bigger. You will get in trouble if you keep going with that approach...