15 The repairs to our damaged sailboat have begun. 

Please wear a mask. Those microfibers fiberglass dust is not good for your lungs. Remove the keel for a better look of the underside of the keel/hull joint. That delamination may be farther out than you can see right now.

You need to drop the keel. Put new keel bolts in, reglass the grid, and reassembly the whole thing. You can't get to the real damage with the boat resting on the keel. Simply put , the keel has separated from the hull. The only real fix is to separate the two, clean everything up, and put in new glass.

Maybe the bolts are flexing being rusted out to a smaller diameter. I'd take the whole keel of.

Alright. I think the mountain the ripoff boat yard planted in our minds is turning into more of a molehill. Fingers crossed. I can't wait to see what next week reveals. You guys take care. May the Force Be With You! Live Long and have fewer boat repairs! 😎

The shop vac is great but get the cheapest drop cloth and pitch a tent to seal off EVERTHING walls and other cabins. Make a Dexter clean room LOL. Get a strong fan to flow air through the enclosure and mate it to a a/c filter to reduce the dust. If not you will be inching for months.

You wont find how deep the cracks go while your boat is sitting on it's keel. If the tabs are delaminated then you will probably find that the grid has also dropped from the hull. If this is the case then the cracks will appear again because of your bottom heavy keel which wants to swing like a pendulum when under load.

After reading all the comments I hope you guys listen to some of these guys. Good luck

You can by yourself a little minicamra withe(light) conected to a "hose" and use that in TINY spaces : )

Great work, you will make it.

So glad to see you guys getting her fixed. And, while it looks like it is a LOT of work, it doesn't quite look as bad as it could have been? You'll be back in the water in no time!

Hi, please use epoxy, not polyester, grind back at least 6" either side , leaving no gelcoat only clean fibreglass. You would be safer to reglass the whole inner section of the grid . I know it's dusty horrible work , but be safe . Best idea as your living in the boat, tent up the area your working with pvc sheet , then put vac tube into tent . Your doing well .

Integrated keels. Best idea....

Now that you have some of the cracks ground away have the travel lift pick up boat to take pressure off of keel and look for more problem areas. The amount of side to side movement the keel had in the earlier video says to me that there's more going on here for that to happen. You don't want to do these small repairs without looking at the big picture.

you've got this

you are doing a one sided patch....even with using an epoxy resin, which adheres much better than polyester, you need a large area for bonding. See as boats are built most use a laminating resin which doesnt harden between layers. Once fiberglass is hardened you only get a mechanical bond....so with that being said going up the grid walls a few inches maybe not enough to tab into. I watched your guy run a meter over the outside, he was checking for moisture, I would check inside also. You want that area inside to be as dry as possible, when you took off the wood it was dark which means moisture. I would also make sure when I did the final grind inside I would use a heavy grit such as 60. you want the area to be full of deep ridges for the glass to bond to....bonding new glass to a smooth surface looses bonding. now you see the 30k cost...and you need to check the whole bottom inside all along the grid, that crack cant be just localized in my opinion....and whats your thoughts on the keel joint? will you guys be addressing that? be interesting to see the current torque of the keel bolts...but then again that may open another can of worms..after another quick look at 19.54 you say it wasnt tabbed is there any compound between the grid and hull? most use a compound that adheres the liner to the hull, or in your case the grid to the hull....

Thank you for talking me out off buying a boat love the sea but next time I want a sea adventure I will hire a boat love your channel

👍😎

fantastic !!! not so bad after all just remedial work soon be ready to finally sail into the deep blue sea

Looks like your luck is starting to change for the better. Awesome

Can’t wait to see you in July! You two are an inspiration! Now hurry the hell up so we can get a beer! ❤

Love it never quit, cant wait to sea the smiles when you get them sails up and relax.

Keep the faith, you're both doing great. Personally, I liked the music choices..❤

Good insights tbh. Pretty much illustrates why the shallower Draft the Bolt on Keel is, the greater the reduction in leverage moments are which reduces the strain on the Keel to Hull Hoin, as well as the nasty stretching effect on the Fixing Bolts , which gets compounded by Re Torquing them, which keeps increasing the stretch abd weakening them. No idea what the Draft of your boat is (just started watching) but it looks as thoughnit is a shallow enough Dradt to place it wellminside the Safety zone, where reasinable damage from grounding can be taken, aithout any extensive enough to cause a sinking. For me, the Maximum Draft of a Bolt on Keel so that healthy Safety Zone Exists, is a 5ft Draft as a decent Rule of Thumb. I have Been pretty much exclusively a Long Keel or Bilge Keel Sailing Boat Cruiser, but would not Rule out a Decent Shallow Draft Cruiser with a Bolt on Keel as they are definitely Safe enough as far as I'm concerned. Anything deeper than 5ft Sraft, to me, is by default restricted to areas like the Mediterranean. Well, I don't want my Cruising to be that restricted tbh, but a lot of people are very happy just sailing in the Mediterranean, and good luck to them. Best Wishes and Fair Winds. Bob in Wales. 👍⛵️✨️✨️✨️

God bless you. Remember to take care of yourselves. Take a break if you need to and come back stronger. If a marriage can survive this it can survive anything.

wear a 3M n95 demo respirator when sanding/grinding. also water cooled tyvek is a thing - get some coolpax vests. they take ice for cooling. also you need to add more stands and grind away with the keel not supporting the boat. use the yard forklift to lift it. take keel off and grind. then glass it and readd weight to keel. then close it. i would go with 2" solid glass inside minimum. you havent found the biggest crack yet. you havent fixed anything without keel removal from boat. grind once, cry once. do it right.

mask for fibreglassing - see SV Lynx for their dyi positive pressure respirator mask that cost $250 - make contact and see if they can assist with the 3d printed part

I am assuming that you have been doing all of your inspections with Flow resting on her keel and stands. Is there any way you could inspect her while she is suspended with the keel off the ground. This may show some more areas where the grid is separating from the hull. I would also like to say that I think your surveyor should have checked your keel bolts during the inspection process and they would have at least seen the oil in the bilges. (P,PC & W) Pig, Pork Chop & Whiskey,Jaunita and I sure hope you found all of the damage and that you are able to make all the necessary repairs and get back to what you were wanting to do all along. SAILING. We all wish you the best of luck and hope that this doesn’t deter you from reaching your dreams. Thank you for sharing your ups and downs and you should know we are all pulling for you

Great work! I would definitely call in a pro at certain intervals to inspect your progress and provide guidance if that’s an option. Keep grinding! ( pun intended)

That first repair was an air void when the hull was laminated,poor work by Hunter.I can see the crack where the hull turns down to the keel above where you grinded first.Very easy to see even on my tiny iPhone screen.it’s right in the corner or radius.

Like the Evan’s on Expedition Evans would you be better served to drop the keel and fix the keel mounts? It may prove to be safer. Or I’m I incorrect and it’s that bad?

Face shield and the very least a disposable mask! This is from years of grinding glass... Goodonyas...go get'm tiger (s)!

Hello from Australia, I don't know what your timeline is, but I am very worried that you have missed something. With such huge sideways movement of the keel you should be finding more damage not just small little cracks. have you checked out Expedition Evans channel on their grid rebuild, maybe different boat but principal the same. Please do not take lightly the repairs as yours and your wife's live's depend on them and as a new subscriber i wish you fair winds and following seas Good Luck

Nobody curious about the oil drum that was sloshing around that bilge for how many years? Was it actually oil or just funk? Either way.. something going on.. 🙏

Just started watching you guys enjoy your videos. I have a 43 legend hunter.

Check out Expedition Evans had the same problem

What a nightmare. Whoever surveyed the boat should be slapped around a bit. His/her Incompetence could’ve cost you your lives.

as @ robert ... said below - You need to drop the keel - see early episodes of expedition evans where they did a similar repair

Expedition Evans had the same problem, if you have time see how much they ground back on their hull grid. Different boat and different amount of damage, but they also took the keel off. I would like to see the grid go down in to the bottom of the keel box .

Your boat had the same problem as Expedition Evans

Grinding fibreglass without a mask on is suicide, even outside

Please turn that back ground music down or better still off! Other wise l love your video content,very interesting

is the keel sitting on something solid... that would change the crack

Please turn off the music when you are talking, or ideally completely, its driving me nuts.

Damn this is a big deal….fixing the visual “broken” areas is one thing, but what caused it, hate to see all this work done and the cracks return that would be so disheartening. Keep plugging along you two can do this!

Assume you will wiggle the keel to see if it still moves or there are more cracks? I go under the “might as wells” theory. Might as well grind it all at the outside hull /keel intersection to be sure you don’t die at sea! If this were an airplane, what would you do??

Be interesting to see the 'crack' that was on the outside that you started picking at in the early video. The large 'hull' crack you were grinding at the end how far does that go? Didn't seem to really see the whole length of it in the video.

Is it my imagination or does your mast support post have a bend in it about where the table height is? It could be the camera lense / angle, but if it is bent you need to sort that out too while you're messing with the keel.

I would say your looking at whole keel off and completely overhauled as you have that weight in keel you very easy lose it if you just try and patch it as the old saying do it right do it once

I have no opinion on Hunter's build quality, but in my (non-professional) opinion some appalling engineering/construction decisions were made in the case of your boat. To illustrate let me describe a more sound implementation of a hull-grid design. In this case a mid-80's Pearson. The Pearson grid is not open (as with your Hunter) but continuous with all non-vertical parts of the grid following the exact contour of the hull and doubling the structural thickness. The grid runs from the forward waterline to the aft waterline, and above the waterline on the sides (where the grid is heavily glassed to the hull). In the keel area both the grid and the hull dip down into a keel-stub. Consequently, the keel bolts go through both hull and grid (1.25" of FG) and the loads are fully transferred to both structures. It appears that in your Hunter the keel is bolted only through the hull (how thick?).. There is no indication as to whether the Hunter grid was directly attached to the hull, with polyester or adhesive. To rely on a secondary attachment using a few layers of 3" wide glass tabbing to transfer the loads is ridiculous in my opinion. I appears to me the the keel stresses have broken the hull away from grid wherever the keel is attached. It is possible that latent cracks extend further than is currently visible. To safely establish a lasting level of structural integrity, I believe you will have to do much more than you are proposing in this video. I do not know how far you have progressed with this repair in real-time, but I pray that you have taken a much more robust approach. You might consider finding a way to [a] open the cracks between the hull and grid (perhaps using the travel-lift) and insert thickened epoxy, and [b] epoxy-glass the floor and high up the sides of each grid opening to recreate what Pearson did in their sailboats. In the process you probably should remove the keel bolts and backing plates. Glass right up to the bolts and as thickly as the bolt lengths will allow (keeping epoxy out of the threads). Then re-secure the keel bolts and backing plates through this double layer of FG. The only other option I can think of is to do the above after completely dropping the keel...

Bonjour mes pirates. Les travaux de reconstruction ont commencé et même si travailler au fond d'un voilier n'est pas vraiment agréable vous êtes sur la voie de la guérison. Courage les amis. De longues heures de travailler avec harassant vous attendent mais la liberté est au bout. Olivier.

Stop the music I can't hear the tapes

This is one of those times you need a real expert to come and advise you . I’m worried you haven’t uncovered half of the problem yet .

This is going to be a big expensive fix ,a lick and a promise ain’t going to get this resolved and certainly not by amateurs get some good advice from professionals and a plan to work towards

You have done nowhere near enough grinding.

Man dont be fool grind all out. There is lot going on there hiden

you are in denial. The problem is way bigger. You will get in trouble if you keep going with that approach...