boat owner

PRACTICAL

Faced with a split in the front of the keel on his Albin Ballad,

Mark Ryan decides on a course of redemptive action and cracks into it

STEP

BY

STEP

Keel crack repair

I spoke at length with David Johnson of Wessex Resins, who spent a great deal of time guiding me on the repair and choosing the correct materials

for the job. (You can source all of these from East Coast Fibreglass Supplies.)

Materials required for the job

■ WEST SYSTEM epoxy, not

polyester resin. Epoxy may be

fi ve times more expensive, but

it’s also fi ve times stronger than

polyester resin. Perhaps more

importantly, though, it has far

better secondary bonding

characteristics (its ability to ‘stick’

to something else), so your repair

will be less likely to drop out!

■ WEST SYSTEM 402 milled

glassfi bre ‘choppies’.

■ WEST SYSTEM 406

colloidal silica.

■ Acetone.

■ Peel ply. David put me on to

this stuff. It is the best favour

you can do for yourself – and

I’ll explain why later.

■ Polyester release

fi lm (optional).

■ Light, 300gm biaxial cloth.

You will need several layers of

this, but it will go ‘around’ corners

better and will shape to this

complex area. Don’t be tempted

by more exotic materials like

carbon fi bre (unless you have a

degree in composites engineering)

to repair your glassfi bre boat.

Glassfi bre reinforced with

high-quality epoxy has an

elongation to break in

excess of 4%: carbon fi bre

has limited elongation and

thus is not as sympathetic to

your boat’s existing structure,

and stands more chance of

breaking away.

■ Cardboard for templating

your ‘fi x’ area.

■ Good-quality glassfi bre shears.

■ Mixing pots, sticks and

disposable paintbrushes.

■ A small consolidation roller.

■ Cobalt drill bits (HSS will

certainly do).

■ A drill.

■ Ideally, a multi-tool like the Fein

multi-tool with a diamond cutter.

■ A grinder with a coarse

sanding disc.

■ PPE, loads of PPE. Disposable

overalls, gloves, a good

respirator, ear and eye protection.

You may look like something

out of Breaking Bad, but you

will be thankful to not be itching

for a week after grinding away

at your boat.

This is the fi nal design that we agreed would do the job

© Gougeon Brothers Inc

M

y Albin

Ballad Triola

suffered from

a mast truss

problem that

led to the truss expanding and

splitting the front of my keel

open, with water subsequently

seeping into the bilges.

The fi rst thing you need to do

with any ‘hole’ or split in your

boat is to fi gure out exactly what

caused the split and remedy that

fi rst – or else any fi x you do will

likely be short-lived, and the

problem will just occur again.

My solution for dealing with the

cause of the split was removing

the old truss, fi xing the crack and

fi nally replacing the truss entirely.

So, how to fi x that crack...

The ideal repair

I had repaired glassfi bre before,

and knew that the ideal repair

would have to attain a 12:1

bevel. Needless to say, the

hull in this area is reasonably

thick at 2cm, so a repair bevel

would be a whopping 24cm

radius from its centre: at its

widest, it would be well north

of 50cm diameter wide.

Terror descended at this point,

so I phoned Wessex Resins

and they suggested the bevel

could do with being larger than

12:1 in this area: however, I

didn’t need to bevel the whole

2cm depth.

With my repair design decided

upon, I got to work fi xing the

crack in my beautiful Ballad.

GRP epoxy

Epoxy 406 colloidal silica

Fairing

13mm epoxy fi ller

8 layers of

300gm

biaxial cloth

14 layers of

300gm

biaxial cloth

15:1 bevel

GRP epoxy

BEFORE

AFTER

RIGHT This was the

crack in the front of the

keel of Mark Ryan’s

Albin Ballad

BELOW The

completed repair,

with an application

of Coppercoat. The

keel is now stronger

than it ever was