Damaged bilge keel Mac 26

[Siobhan Prendergast]

Hello

A lovely old 1967 Mac 26 has become mine recently and I am hoping to bring it back to life. It is not in bad repair, I understand (and hope) mostly cosmetic, however it does have one badly damaged keel. I have a lot of paperwork with the boat but I can’t work out a few things. Am I correct in thinking that there is a ballast/weight in each of the bilge keels within the fibre-glassed keel?

On my boat, one keel is intact, except for a few holes that can be repaired. Through one of the holes I can see an orange-coloured ‘plastic’ that feels hard to touch, I am assuming this contains the ballast…???? The second keel is a few inches shorter (due to damage being left moored at sea too long – floating at high tide and sitting on beach at low tide, but was hitting the beach in rougher weather. It should have been dried out in early autumn.) There is no ballast or ‘sole’ to the second keel. I am quite handy with DIY but safety is very important to me. Is this repair something I can learn to do myself – I have done minor surface repairs with fibre glass before but this is structural work so I am not sure.

While I am hoping to find the missing ballast on the beach it is probably unlikely, so if anyone has advice on replacing the ballast I would be so grateful.

 

Thanks a mill,

Siobhán

[Peter Lloyd]

Hi Siobhan

If like my Wight the keels are filled with iron ingots, which would account for the hard orange coloured material. I am sure one of the others will be able to tell you more. Linda was able to provide me with some blue print drawings for the Wight which would probably be useful for your rebuild. The Mac 26 is probably built to the same design.

An additional question I have is. Does the ballast compartment need to be washed to remove the salt from the sea water, before the bilge is re-sealed?

Best regards

Peter

[Siobhan Prendergast]

Hi Peter

Thank you so much for getting back to me. Could I contact Linda, I don’t know who she is as I am new to this association? It would be fantastic to have blueprint drawings!

Good point on the keels needing to be washed out, both would have had salt water in them so yes absolutely I will be sure to wash them out well.

Thanks a mill,

Siobhán

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