Dave, Thanks for your input I highly value it as always. Ken ----- Original Message ----- From: "W David Scobie" <wdscobie@yahoo.com> To: "For and about Montgomery Sailboats" <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 11:29 PM Subject: Re: M_Boats: Help with M15 keel damage ken: 1. Has anyone seen damage like this before? that description of damage is new to me. i have read descriptions of Mboat with some bumps in the forward edge of the skeg keel requiring some simple glass and epoxy work ... what you describe seems like a lot of work to fix and structural. 2. Can I access the damage at the rear of the keel from inside anywhere. I would want to patch the outside and reinforce the inside if possible. to access the damage from the rear you would need to cut out the cockpit locker liners AND remove the large block of foam under the cockpit sole. even then ... only a few inches of height is available. one would be 'standing on their head' IF they could fit their body into the locker. i can see that if one really needed to get into a repair rear of the centerboard would require cutting out of a good sized section of cockpit floor. 3. Is the keel well (viewed from inside the boat) not supposed to be filled level with the hull? yes, as described before, this is the bilge. actually, your old M17 is rare in that there was no space to the stern of the centerboard trunk to act as a bilge. 4. Do all the M15s (even the older ones) have thee same centerboard? centerboards are essentially the same size and weight. the 'new' boards are lead and are a bit narrower. the old boards (before the lead transition) are steel covered in fiberglass. see the msog and msogphoto sites for pictures of steel boards receiving repair. 5. Were any of these boats delivered without a rear mast crutch? This one doesn't have one along with other missing items. i think all Mboats come/came with a mast crutch. some seem to be stainless, and others wood (ie, M17 735's is wood and M15s #288's is stainless). the mast of the 15 needs no crutch to raise. the M15s mast needs no help in raising IMO. i can do M17's #375's without mechanical assistance. for both Mboats i use the jib halyard as a 'snubber' to hold the mast until i attach the forestay. the crutch helps i that it keeps the mast level with the cabintop ... making the process a bit less work. ken, the boat you describe sounds like a project that may have BIG structural problems. dave scobie M17 #375 - sweet pea (http://www.m17-375.webs.com) prior owner of M15 #288 --- On Tue, 6/2/09, Ken Wheeler <wesi@comcast.net> wrote: Help! _______________________________________________ http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/montgomery_boats Remember, there is no privacy on the Internet!