Ttsaang
Veteran Member
I Have a 1974 Roughwater 35 with a fibreglass hull and a full keel. When I put it on the hard recently I noticed liquid oozing out near where the prop shaft comes out. (see photo's) It does look like a very small crack is there. I can't tell if it's salt water or freshwater, tastes a bit like salt water but I can't be sure. Pretty smelly stuff. (see photo of jar) In trying to narrow things down I decided to shop vac the remaining liquid out of the bottom of the bilge. Before I did this I put some red food colouring in the liquid to see if it was coming through the crack. I collected the liquid from below the crack over a period of about 5 days and as you can see in the photo of the jar, it's not red. I have been vacuuming out the liquid at the stern end of the bilge where the prop shaft goes through the bulkhead, the boat sits on the hard slightly bow high. I sucked it out completely and I come back the next day and there's more water in the bilge, not a lot but it seems to be percolating up from the bottom of the bilge/keel. I'm not sure what's below the fibreglass at the bottom of the keel, maybe some sort of ballast. (I would like to add more) After reading many posts I'm thinking that the lower part of the keel is full of water. Note that I did a major repair last year to the windows and topside decks and a lot of water had been getting into the boat and probably for quite a while, but no fresh water has been getting in since last March and over the summer there was never an abnormal amount of water in the bilge, but always a few inches. I assumed that was normal and to make matters worse, it was also complicated by the fact that the wastewater holding tank had been overfilled at some point and was leaking into the bilge. (the wastewater pump had failed and there's no level indicator for the fibreglass holding tank, it's on my list of projects for this winter) So I'm wondering if the small crack is the culprit and maybe it developed last winter before I started topside repairs and water maybe froze in the keel.
Do I need a drain plug in the lower part of the keel? Could this be an issue with my stern tube or stuffing box? Can I fix the crack with thickened structural Epoxy?
As a side note, I find the boat quite rolly and wondering if anyone has a solution for potentially adding ballast?
Do I need a drain plug in the lower part of the keel? Could this be an issue with my stern tube or stuffing box? Can I fix the crack with thickened structural Epoxy?
As a side note, I find the boat quite rolly and wondering if anyone has a solution for potentially adding ballast?
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