MacGregorSailors.com

I recently acquired a 1984 MacGregor 25. I've done a lot of work to her, but I had a big surprise today.

I went to put in a new keel lock bolt, And I found the old one had ripped through the fiberglass. This is on the battery compartments side, and the tear is towards aft.

I'm assuming he was sailing without the bolt through the keel. Must have grounded the keel in reverse?


Any suggestions on how to fix this?

Khenault, you're new so posting images is disallowed for your first few posts. This prevents spammers from posting obscene or advertising photos to the board. (Also, the links you posted won't work here - you need to link the actual image, not the page it's on.)

For everyone else, here's the photos he posted:

I feel bad about your keel bolt. I hope it's not making you too sad because I think there are people on this site that know how to fix such things.

You have put a lot of work into your boat so I think you would feel bad about that damage to the fiberglass but it might be a really easy fix.

Still, just saying that probably does not make you feel any better. We all get bummed out when we find a surprise problem - I HATE those kinds of problems because it takes me a long time to adjust to issues I am not prepared for.

I hope the guys here look at your pictures and come up with a fix.

Bump

I have no experience with a Mac 25. I have a which has a different system entirely, I think. Just looking at the photos though, it appears like the hole goes through two separate layers of fiberglass with a space between them. If so, I wonder if you couldn't fill that space with resin and chopped glass to increase the strength. Maybe the photo is playing tricks on what is actually there.

That bolt is well bent. Were there washers on the bolt?

I'm sure someone with M25 experience will comment eventually.

There were no washers on the bolt. The tear is only one side of the fiberglass. I was planning on doing just as you suggested, with a couple new layers of fiberglass on top. Completely filling the hole, then redrilling a new hole.

On my old V-25 I had the same problem, but worse, when the keel winch line broke while the keel was up. Getting the old girl on the trailer was quite the Sunday Project! I filled the "slots" with resin and fiber, as you are planning on doing, but I then added about a 3" X 3" square of 1/4" plywood on each side for added strength. My boat was sailed mostly on mountain lakes, so unless I Trailered her to CA, I never used the keel lock. If you have the chance, look through that hole while somebody moves the keel up and down. You will see that the way it is designed, if you put the keel down while that lock bolt is in place, the bolt becomes a stop just slightly before the keel reaches full extension. I suspect that, had I looked closer, I would have seen that the lock bolt was moving aft slowly over the years, and digging through the fiberglass, just due to the keel bouncing off of it every time I sailed. Anyway, after adding the plywood pieces and replacing the bolt (with a longer one, of course) I kept a good watch on the holes (and on the winch cable!) and had no elongation of them over the next 5 years that I owned the boat.
I also began experimenting, and could tell no difference in the way she sailed with the keel fully down or with it bouncing off the bolt. Since keel strikes were more of a worry for me than the fiberglas repair, I continued to sail it the way I always had.