Keel Drain Plug

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Dom61

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 26, 2010
Messages
100
Location
USA
Vessel Name
Brandi Jo
Vessel Make
1975 Marine Trader 34
Hi I live in the buffalo NY area and would like to install a drain plug in my keel any ideas of a good location ? also I was wondering if the engine area of the bilge would be seprated from the rest of the bilge area on a 1975 35 DC Thanks Dom
 

Why do you want a drain plug? I have not see a drain plug on a larger size boat. that is what bilge pumps are for and there should be no water in the bilge if there it should be investigated. The Eagle bilge is dry, and if there is water/moistrue there is something wrong. :eek: Besides its another hole in the hull!

Most boats have bulk heads that separate the bilge in to sections, forward, Engine room and lazaret. They help support the supper structure. When the Eagle is pull they straps are placed where the bulk heads and marked on the Eagle hull.
 
Keels on these boats get water in them for some reasion and as for the bulk heads I was just wondering if they used them that long agao 1975 they are not full bulkheads just small dividers to form a sump
 
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There was a post, perhaps a year ago about water in the keel and adding a drain plug. I can't remember any more details but do some searching.
 
Hi I live in the buffalo NY area and would like to install a drain plug in my keel any ideas of a good location ? also I was wondering if the engine area of the bilge would be seprated from the rest of the bilge area on a 1975 35 DC Thanks Dom

Dom
Wouldn't be without one in a northern climate. Bilge pumps don't work on ice. Where I store in FL too, I have seen many people come back to a mildew filled boat w/ a flooded bilge by relying on just pulling an intake hose as a precaution. You are looking for a "garboard drain" Get a good one bronze not brass and matching bronze screws if you can find them. Make a shallow recess in your keel with a hole saw the same OD as OD of your drain flange, then switch to a smaller holesaw the same as your drain body. You don't need to go more than 1/8" deep with the larger saw. Chip out between the 2 saws to make a shallow recess for the flange. That way if a log slides down the keel it won't knock the flange off. Install with 5200 & bronze screws or bolts. There are two types of garboard drains, one with internal plug and one with external. Hope this helps.
 

The stern cutlers are of the Eagle leaked allow water into the keel. The yard pissed me off as they wnat to cut/opne up the keel and replace, which I said BS. :mad: So I call my surveyor and he told me to drill a holes high up to let air in and a bigger one down low bottom on both sides of the keel to let the water hour. Tape/epoxy a vac to blow air in at the top and let run for several days while I did the bottom paint. Then I pump epoxy in the bottom hole, using grease guns until it came out the top hole. Like filling a lower stern unit. Let dry, epoxy the holes, and its passed the rap tab survey for 15+ years.

I would not install a drain plug, instead if there is water to cut a hole on the keel, dry out and epoxy closed.
 
Oh, I thought he was talking about draining water during storage, my bad.
 
I am talking about draining during storage and it would take 2 drums to fill the keel on this boat Dom
 
Just installed a garboard drain.

Water somehow got into the area between the cement keel ballast and the rather flimsy plywood and fibreglass covering it. Over this past winter the freezing of this water forced the ply and glass covering upward in the forward bilge area and in the engine room sump area with resulting large cracks that are in process of being repaired. A week of very slow draining through the new garboard drain hole has yielded about 4-5 gals of water so far. Almost dry now. Will leave drain plug out every fall from now on.

You need to find the lowest point on the keel when the boat is on the hard and properly blocked and drill there. I went through about an inch of solid glass before hitting the cement ballast and stopped. YRMV.
 
Being a trailerboat, Big Duck needs a garboard drain to encourage a dry bilge while on the trailer. I opted for the transom style because it is much easier to access. For some reason, none of these '72 vintage boats came from the factory with garboard plugs - we have one now and were very fortunate to have the opportunity to put one in after some harrowing experiences...

One More Time Around: Fireproof Duck
 
The keel on your 34 is filled with either foam or a mix of low quality cement and river gravel. A 75 would most likely be cement and gravel. If there's so much water in there that you feel you need a drain plug - you've got a leaking aft coupling, or a badly corroded shaft log.

The only other cause is severe damage to the bottom of the keel, the kind caused by multiple groundings and amateur repairs.

The most common cause is the two studs that hold the aft coupling to the hull corroding and weakening. Shaft logs do go bad on these boats, usually right next to the stuffing box coupling where oxygen is low.

The bilge on your boat is a false one - it's a thin layer of fiberglass that the yard laid over the keel after the ballast was poured when the two halves of the hull were joined together. If water is slowly seeping in under the engine, or in the bilge just under the main hatch in the salon, it needs to be addressed.

Does the water starts seeping in from 30 seconds to a few minutes after spring launch? That's a telltale sign.

It is fixable for one to three boat units - depending on how bad the damage is. Better to fix this now, before the wobbling shaft does more damage.

Best of Luck!

If you want to try this yourself I have all the pictures of what it looks like torn apart. You'll need a prop and shaft puller and good alignment skills.
 
Hi some pictures would be great dflorio61@msn.com I do have a small vibration at higher RPM Dom
 
When we bought the Eagle the inside shaft seal/cutlass had leaked and the wood was rotten and weeping. Since the prop and shaft had to be removed, I had he shaft checked/straighten for like 50 bucks. Anyway the yard did the repair not to my satisfaction, which they argued with me. Big mistake, I fired them and kick them off my boat, and hire a fiber glass person. I had a SS plate made, new bronze cutless housing and install a drippless and did it my way. :thumb:

I will never ever pull at a yard where they do not allow other and/or you to work on your boat. The yard told me they would not splash my boat until I paid their, will I showed up with my attorney. They splashed my boat, but they where jerks about it. :mad:

Anyway if there is water in the keel there the source should be found and fixed.
 
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Hi I live in the buffalo NY area and would like to install a drain plug in my keel any ideas of a good location ? also I was wondering if the engine area of the bilge would be seprated from the rest of the bilge area on a 1975 35 DC Thanks Dom
Hello Dom. Although I don't own your particular brand boat. Did you install a garboard Plug? I am going to put one in next week. Wondering how your findings went.

The last two boats I put garboard plugs in, were my own design.

I simply used a 7/16" bit and drilled a hole in the bottom of the bilge. (within the bottom 1/4" of the bilge) and plugged the inside of the hole with masking tape. I filled it with epoxy, and 'threaded' a 3/8" tapered plastic plug into the hole as the epoxy set (spray 'Pam" on the plug. The 'threads' of the plastic plug cured to the epoxy.) This way: the fiberglass hull material is completely sealed (epoxy), the threads are reusable, and the plug (plastic) is removable. The BEST part is... the plastic plug is easier to remove than the bronze or brass plugs are, and drilling out the plastic makes the plug easy to push out, and clean up the threads and install a new one.

On to the thoughts about garboard plugs.... The tapered pipe threads are tapered to be installed from the OUTSIDE. Water pressure pushes INward to the hull. Garboard plugs that are installed with the plugs on the INside are defying the whole natural process of water pressure and gravity. When garboard plugs are removed, it is done when the boat is OUT of the water. (from the outside). Having garboard plugs installed from the inside (as the taper would be narrower to the interior of the hole) is NOT how they were designed or envisioned.

As a young shipyard apprentice, I observed many garboard plugs being hammered home. NEVER once were they hammered in from the inside! The threaded plugs are the same.

regarding your avatar..... wasn't Middleport a fine stopover?!
 
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Hi I never put one in I just had a leak in the cutlass bearing I fixed it and that was that
 
Middleport is a great little town we go there many times every summer
 
ImageUploadedByTrawler Forum1412110441.386275.jpgwe were there in June. Nice stopover. I recognized the side of the diner and the angled gutter.
 
We did not get in the canal until July this year
 
I put a garboard plug in my 34MTDC to drain it for winter storage here in upstate NY, and now I have one in my 38MT Sundeck for the same reason. I suspect my shaft tube leaks but no water enters the boat, just the keel. This spring I may pull the shaft and see what I see.
 
It's almost always the aft coupling. Long shaft, a little mis alignment years of vibration, and it starts leaking. Sure, shaft tubes do go but usually at the fwd end when they sit and sit with no oxygen.

YMMV :)
 
i have a 1987 35 chb sundeck model senator 35. at the aft part of the keel below the shaft i have a drain plug. my boat has been on the hard since november 2019. i notice a small seepage of water from the plug. plan to pull it , let any water drain then reseal it. wondering where the water is coming from . bilge is dry and i have not noticed any leaks when it is in the water.
 
i have a 1987 35 chb sundeck model senator 35. at the aft part of the keel below the shaft i have a drain plug. my boat has been on the hard since november 2019. i notice a small seepage of water from the plug. plan to pull it , let any water drain then reseal it. wondering where the water is coming from . bilge is dry and i have not noticed any leaks when it is in the water.


I had one of those. Never noticed the plug?
 

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