Steven,
Your photos are causing me to have flashbacks... I dealt with this very
issue shortly after I got my boat: when I tightened that keel bolt I
heard a crunching sound and the washer under the nut sank about a 1/2"
before I realized what was going on.
Yes, there is wood beneath the forward-most 3/4" keel bolt. It's a stack
of 3" - 4" blocks with a thin (1/8" or so) layer of fiberglass on the
top and on the forward face. The forward face is the aft end of the
sump under the mast step, in your first photo you're looking at the
front of that stack which appears to have lost the fiberglass cover. It
looks like they kind of poured glass and resin around the stack to fill
in between the wood and the hull.
My fix was to put a vertical piece of 3/4"" thick fiberglass board
(McMaster Carr) on the front face of the wood, shaped to fit and tabbed
into the sides of the sump, then another 3/4" glass board on top of the
wood (removed the old stuff) also tabbed in to the side. The top board
had a hole to fit over the keel bolt, and its front end landed on the
vertical board. I epoxied all the stuff in with lots of filler.
FWIW I think that forward keel bolt is an add on, as I have the original
35-1 construction drawing and it just shows only the six 1" bolts and
calls for wood filler in the entire sump. The wood and keel bolt line
up with the downward sloping forward end of the lead, in line with the
"smile".
The job was not too complicated but a real PITA, as all the work is down
in the sump, hard to get at and not much room to work, but overall
doable. I also replaced my sagging mast step at the same time, using
layers of the glass board to span over the sump. Also a PITA but
apparently others have had to do it as well.
Neil Gallagher
Weatherly 35-1
Glen Cove, NY
On 10/24/2022 5:24 PM, steven.hickel--- via CnC-List wrote:
I have a C&C 35 mk I. I don't know what what the blocks under the, at
least forward most, keel bolt are made of. It has a sort of wood
grain, but feel like rock. The fiberglass on the forward-most keel
bolt has separated on the starboard side. There's also a top at least
mostly resin layer that seems to be peeling away suddenly under that
bolt and in other sections of the bilge between bolts. I'm hoping that
the blocks aren't wood inside of resin that have rotted at the bottom
and sunk down and caused the laminate around the forward keel bolt to
do the same. Can anyone shed any light here? Seems best to post before
drilling a hole in the bilge to probe the material. Please see the
linked photos
https://photos.app.goo.gl/fnTpJJrbdAQ8htiH8
Thank you so much for any help and for this forum
