Crack in the keel

Hello!

I'm sorry for my bad english but I'm thinking about buying a pretty nice IW26 that has a little problem.

The owner told me it has a 30 cm crack in the iron keel from the bottom and up (in the middle of the keel). It happend because high water that frose when it was on land in the winter. The owner has filled the emtpy space in the keel with plastic and put epoxy in the crack. He tells me that no water comes up inte the boat but about a dl comes out from the plasted crack when he lifts the boat in the fall.

What do you think about this? Is there anything to worry about? Something special that I should look for when he showes me the boat on land?

 

I don't know the boat but can offer a couple of thoughts:

-Start by finding out if the boat has internal or external ballast and what is in fact cracked

I say this as it seems unlikely that a solid iron ballast keel has cracked from freezing. This sounds more like a case where the laminate over internal ballast has split.

If that boat has internal ballast and the skin is split, I would say that this is a serious problem which may prove to be very difficult to repair. Water will have migrated around the ballast. If the boat is ballasted with iron set in concrete, the concrete may have fully split it two and might prove impossible to repair.

I would research the boat first and find out how she is built.

Just guesses but this is not an issue to take lightly.

 

This is the kind of issue that I am often ask to evaluate as an engineer. If it is a cast iron one piece keel that is hollow, it can crack like this just from a casting flaw (a cooling crack). IF it does not affect the structure of the hull, filling it with plastic to seal is not a bad fix. That is if the hull integrity is not compromised, it just depends on the design of the hull/keel combination.

However, if the keel is part of the integral structure to the hull, and depending on the size and location of the crack, it could seriously compromise the safety of the hull, especially in heavy seas.

It might be possible to structurally weld the crack (it needs to be stop-drilled at each end of the crack, and the keel heated before welding), but that likely has to be done only after it is removed from the hull, a costly repair.

To know for sure you probably need a competent professional inspect it, and even then if the extent of the crack is not completely visible, at best it would be an educated guess. It would help if you could dig up the original plans for the professional to review as well. Even better is to have the original designer share his thougths on this. He may know how to fix it if is has occurred on other examples.

Even so, this could represent an excellent buy if the price is right, and you buy it knowing what you are getting. The trick of course is to get an accurate assessment of what needs to be done, if anything, before you commit to buy it.

So be careful and you may do okay, if not sure, or if the price is not significantly reduced, pass on it. You will always be able to find good deals on fixers.

Good luck

 

http://translate.google.com/transla...=s&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=j3p&sa=G

Nice looking boat (swedish design?) - reminds me of a San Juan 24

 

Yes it's a Swedish boat designed by Peter Norlin. It is 26 foot long and a quite good sailor.

 

Thank you for your answer!

You are right it is a hollow keel made of iron. At least some part of it is hollow.
The owner of the boat contacted the constructor Peter Norlin after the accident. It was the constructor who suggested the repair metod.

These boats are relatively cheep (about 6000 Euro) so its not really possible to make very expensive repairs.

I'm not really concerned about the boat will fall apart when I'm sailing it, I just don't wanna do a really bad deal. Probably I will not have the boat for longer than 3-5 years.

Maybe I should try getting a profssional to inspect it, so he can tell me what it's really worth?