Fiberglass cracks while torquing keel bolts on a Catalina 30.. 

"Tomorrow might be TOO late." You have the wrong to/too. Love your vids Boss.

Good dig on the keel and hoses

Been watching as a good way to learn of my cat 30. Great finds will check my scupper plumbing.

I have friends with Cat 30’s.. this vid will help greatly! Keep up the digging!

Great video ☺️☺️☺️

I’m really enjoying learning the boat with you along the way. I’m a power boat guy but would love to learn real sailing. Glad you made the channel!

Coming along nicely , great attention to detail. Keep up the good work.

Dan has really nice gloves. They look super comfy.

Never knew about defender I'll have to check them out

Got me nervous at first Can't wait for the next vid and esp can't wait to see you out on the water

Another good and informative video

Definitely want to see more details on the steering adjustments. Mine is really loose also. And I noticed the bolt that holds the radial drive to the rudder is at spec, but very loose. The play in the wheel occurs for this reason; the bolt is moving around.

To tighten the steering cables you do not loosen the cable clams. You should go to the back of the quarter berth and ends of the cables are looped through some very long eye-bolts which are double nutted. Loosen the locking nut and tighten the first nut to tension the cable and then lock down the lock nuts. On thing that you should also check espesially given that some of your keel bolts were very loose is the keel stub. The structure between the lead keel and the nuts and washers in the bilge consists of the fiberglass hull then two layers of 1/2" CDX plywood and a covering of fiberglass. Many of the older C30's have gotten water into the plywood which rots it to black goo and makes the keel bolts loose. The best test is to drill some small holes into the bottom of the stub right next to each of the keel bolts. If all is well, you should drill through about 1/4" of fiberglass and then hit a 1" layer of clean yellow wood chips. If the wood comes out black, you need to pull out the old rotted wood and replace it with something like G10 composite board and then cover with some layers of fiberglass cloth and resin. The Catalina Yachts drawing for this repair is available in the files section of the C30 FB group. Given that you are on the hard and the engine is out, it would be a perfect time to do the repair if needed. I would be highly suspicious of that aft bolt. Suck the water out and if the washer is pulling down into the top surface of the glass you need to do the repair of can loose the keel or get a very bad leak.

I really enjoy your videos . Do you think it’s safe to fiberglass the bilge under the washer bolt when the boat is on the water by removing one bolt each time ?

For your stirring quadrant to tighten that cable there should be a tightening turnbuckle between the stirring quadrant and your helm station and it just matter holding one with a wrench and tightening it with a screwdriver on the other 1 you might want to look around a little bit more before you start losing those cables up because they're pretty hard to get back where they belong

I have a Cat 30 1984 that is project boat as well (not sure your year, but it looks newer). What is the "diving" TANK in the aft lazarette?

Dam

Man, you scared me with those Epoxy flakes. We hoped to splash this easter, and Now its winter and snow again. Do you even get snow? 😄 Stay safe. 🤣👍

Send it

So the fiberglass collapsed under the washer when I was torquing down the keel nuts... 🤔 can't say I feel good about it. It's actually somewhat bothersome. I'm certain the Integrity of the fiberglass has been compromised right there.

Scupper hoses are a quick way to sink a boat you say.. I wonder how many Jeff Bezos' new boat has..

Hi Brian. I really enjoy your videos. We are also new owners of a Cat 30 and are newbies. Question, the white pan under the engine (is that the oil pan?) and is it normal that there is a hole to allow drips into the bilge? I’m curious about why our bilge seems oily. TIA

68 ft pounds of torque? The Catalina site says 105?

scared me lol

Lost the 10mm?

;-)

My guess is it's a cheap ass torque wrench and you were way over torquing.