Sean, Read your excellent account of the Dauntless repair. The clever way you surmounted all the problems answered all my questions. Thanks for doing such a thorough job. I have recently purchased my second M17 (first one 24 years ago) and the centerboard seems to raise and lower easily. I towed it home to Rockport, Tx. from Stockton, Mo. The boat has some Spanish moss growing on it, a real diamond in the rough. Am looking forward to bring it back to life. Regards, Tom Buzzi On Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 9:44 PM, <Nebwest2@aol.com> wrote:
Hey Thomas
Sean here...
Thanks to all that responded for me indicating I was a bit tied up last week.....LOL.....I WAS!!!
Things are getting back to normal now. Just replaced some steel ballast in my M17 flushdeck Sneakers this fall.....and of course I did a total replacement on "Dauntless" my M23 quite a few years back. The job is a grunt and fairly expensive. Unless you can get scrap lead...figure $1/lb for reclaimed lead shot. I completely encapsulated the shot in resin the way I do it so even if there ever is another fracture in the keel, there is nowhere for water to go. Pouring the resin in from the top leads to large voids of loose shot and open space for water should there be a leak....or at least that's what I found in both instances that I have repaired. On top of the lead purchase price...there is the polyester resin to encapsulate the lead in....and I used epoxy resin, cloth, and biaxial tape to close up the windows I had to create in the side of the keel to get the old resin out. It is not a cheap repair.
Like someone referred to...take the time to find out how the water got in and fix it....and I would propose leaving the empty keel cavity open long enough to allow the laminate to dry out so as not to have future problems with blisters. This could take some time depending on how wet she is and what the Relative Humidity is in your area. Ours is often single digit so that helped me a lot.
My advice would be this. Both boats I have done this to are rare versions of Monty's. There were only 20 23's built and less than half of that number of M17 flushdecks. That made them worthwhile to me to go through this process. If either was not a rare boat ...or a boat I was not attached to....I don't know that the process would have been worth it. It is a lot of work to do it correctly and definitely a financial investment into the boat that you are not too likely to recoup in resale price.
I am back online....but back to work also. Feel free to email me if there is anything I can help with and good luck!
S