Hooper's Yachts in Minnesota has done a few of these. As I recall...they use a grinder to cut an opening into the side the side of the keel (outside) and through that are able to jack hammer out the old ballast...seal up along the bottom of the CB trunk from the inside and then install lead pigs as ballast....which are then encased in epoxy. After that...they put the piece they ground out back into place and cover up the hole. For an M17, I think the cost was around $1,200 to $1,400...and that was about 2 years ago. Either Bones or Theo had a boat done.....they may be able to clarify how it worked and how it has worked since the repair was done. On 1/15/06 9:07 PM, "Nebwest2@aol.com" <Nebwest2@aol.com> wrote:
Well...must have really pissed off one of the sailing gods. Was grinding out a blister on the keel trunk. This particular blister is the only one that just kept bleeding and weeping. Ground a little deeper, little deeper.....whamo! Though the side of the keel trunk into the balast cavity. Guess what??? The entire ballast cavity was full of water. Nice. What to do...well, drain it of course. Drilled a couple more holes and water poured out for half an hour. Probably 10-15 gallons?? Started blowing air with my compressor into the cavity to dry it out. Good idea right? Figured I'd go get a couple of aquarium air pumps and just let them blow into there for a week or two. Then my buddy Gary pointed out that Monty's are full of scrap steel ballast. I confirmed by removing a few pieces and picking them up with a magnet. I know better than to even question Gary's advice and he was correct as usual. Steel+wet+air= rust and rust in a contained space=swelling. Not good. Not thrilled about the thought of having to open up the ballast cavity and remove hundreds of pounds of wet rusted steel ballast then try to re-install lead. I'm guessing that would require removing the floor in the cabin liner. No not real excited about that solution at all. I'm pretty resourcefull (aka cheap) but I am reaching the limits of my capability and patience with this one. Wonder how many thousands it'd cost to just take this one to a pro and have them deal with it. Any ideas???? Probably my payback for the 60 degree remark!!!!
Sean _______________________________________________ http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/montgomery_boats