Removing the keel from my OE36 sailboat

[@rayleather8005]

Excellent film and explanation of the difficulties you had to deal with to get the keel off, I have to do this myself with my own 1979 yacht this winter so your film is so very helpful, good luck my friend with everything, 🍺🍺🍺

[@valvenos]

Great that you shared this process! That is probably one of the harder keels to remove, with two sections and long keel bolts in the back(?)

[@sailingsmalldreamingbig9022]

Thank you for watching. I don't have many keel removals under my belt to compare :D To be honest this is the only keel job I've done. Was not easy but still doable

[@GLF-Video]

Doing the most difficult tasks first is the right choice. Thanks for sharing your work. I look forward to your progress.

[@sailingsmalldreamingbig9022]

That's what I thought, too. Thanks for watching!

[@Flynghi]

Nice job! Piano wire work wells cutting glue. Like cutting a windshield out of vehicles just move it around keel bolts and 2 people is the easiest. That wire makes quick work of the glue.

[@sailingsmalldreamingbig9022]

Thanks! I hope I do not have to do it again though :D

[@WolfieVenturi]

Very insightful and patient work!

[@sailingsmalldreamingbig9022]

Thank you!

[@bigdog0455]

Here is a trick that works for us. When re bonding and bolting the keel to the hull. Apply the sikaflex, I prefer 3m 5200, to the top of the keel. Lower the boat onto the keel, stop about 2mm from contact, lightly hand tighten the bolts (nuts). Wait 24 hours for the 5200 to set. Now pull a good torque on the nuts. You are creating a good thick gasket. If you pull the keel tight to the hull before the 5200 sets, you will squeeze almost all of it out. Better to have 2 mm of 5200 compressed to .75 mm.

[@openseabreeze]

Hey, just an idea, use heat wire (piano) -airgun, to pass through the sealant to break the bond................

[@rockystyer2136]

Very ingenious!, Good job.

[@janisspalvins677]

Great job!

[@vincent7520]

I din't understand : how the keel could drop off if it is supported as you did by the heavy woo blocks you built under it and on its sides. Basically you are lifting the hull (the boat) with the small wedges you inserted. If you supported the hull by a stong wooden structure and letting the keel hanging, it would have dropped off as soon as you removed the bolts . What you are doing is lifting the hull off instead of letting the keel trop off. I'm not saying this out my imagination because 28 years ago I did exactly that on my boat with a keel which had approximately the same shape, with the same hull. What a friend and I did was supporting the boat as strongly as possible on its sides by beams and two strong transversal boards under the hull that took its shape. slammed in bid wedges made of strong wood, the keel fell, welifted it to clean it and sand blast it, we cleaned the under structure that was hidden by the keel, did some minor woodwork in place with water ingress and rot, cleaned the bolt holes after removing the the latter, changed a couple of bolts with new 25mm stainless rods, hardest part was to find someone who had a lathe to make the screws on both sides of the new rods, let dry then refitted the keel with a massive silicone layer, let the putty get tacky in order that it would be squished out by the weight of the hull, brought back the keel under at the same exact old position, screwed the rods/bolts back as much as we could due to the fact the the keel was quite low, then lifted the keel (the process took a whole day because we're talking of a 700Kg of cast iron and it was basically a game of trial and error to have everything perfectly aligned), squeezed veery slow curing epoxy resin in the holes while lifting it, then bolted the the rods and … "et voilà". Took us two weeks. I don remember this well because I took a leave of two weeks to do the job and the last bolt was tighten two hours before my train left the station for Paris !… It's not a difficult job. Nut doing it alone must be a real pain in the but … especially when you have to run and climb inside and out to fix the keel back. Good luck!

[@mvlazysusan]

Unusual trim tab like thingy on trailing edge of keel That's a good solid boat Don't think thay make um as strong today as they did back in the day Over 1,000 sailors have died because the keel fell off the hull of bolt on ballast sailboats When you reattach the ballast, wrap the joint 6 inches up and 6 or more inches down, with like a half inch thick layer of glass. Make an example of over engineering of it. Keep in mind the fiberglass bits of a sailboat can be serviceable for well over a hundred years.so you could change out every bit of gear and rigging for new stuff and a good glass hull can out live us all

[@sailingsmalldreamingbig9022]

Thank you for good advice! This trim tab thing was the thing of the designer Olle Enderlein. OE36 has it and the boat I sail now - Shipman 28 by Olle Enderlein - also had one. Not really useful gadget in my opinion

[@cj1150gs]

​ Hi! Our OE Mistress 32 also once had a trim tab. Previous owner glassed it to the keel. Nice job you did there. If there's a will there's a way and they built the pyramids before power tools :) but some problems may indeed look unsurmountable.

[@TheCrabbers]

Hi great comment! Where do you get the figure 1000 dead?

[@pmnfernando]

next time: break out the sawzall!. thats how i did on my VdS Pioneer 9. back in November. took 90 minutes and the boat was being held by a crane, then asked a friend to weld a piece to tubing to the bolts and unscrewed them from the keel.

[@sailingsmalldreamingbig9022]

Good idea! I hope there won't be next time though :D

[@EurekaRecycler]

we have an old project for you. Is it worth scraping the lead keel for cash? Thanks

[@sailingsmalldreamingbig9022]

I am not sure I got you. Only you yourself can evaluate if the project is worth doing.

[@davemoulding8799]

The keel can’t drop , when it’s against the wood frame

[@sailingsmalldreamingbig9022]

Thank you for your comment! I had sufficient gap there. And finally it dropped. What held it in place was friction of the bolts that were drilled at different angles

[@brudweger]

That was also my thought.

[@leslieturner8260]

Are the bolts tapped into keel. The forward bolt is not at right angle to keel is it going in to a pocket.

[@sailingsmalldreamingbig9022]

No they are not tapped, there are pockets in the keel.

[@samo-nx2pl]

I recently also bought a sailboat in Sweden. 40 years old, similar in shape to yours. Since it is only 2.4 m wide, I took it on the road to Slovenia. The boat is better preserved than your OE 36, but I'm worried about something. I found silicone around the last three screws on the keel. The previous owner claimed that the boat did not leak water anywhere. When I bought it it was not in the water, even now it is still on land. So I can't check if everything is okay there. Do you have any idea how to check this?

[@sailingsmalldreamingbig9022]

I'm afraid there is no good way to check it while on hard. Sure you can fill the bilge with water and monitor if the level stays the same. But the pressure is much stronger when water tries to enter the boat from below so this test does not really show much. Much better - launch the boat with the previous owner and stay at the marina for a day to monitor the bilge. Do a test run to see if the stern gland is not leaking, too. That's where I had a bigger leak on the OE36.

[@sailingsmalldreamingbig9022]

Oh, I missed the part that your boat is already moved away. Anyway all above is still valid - put the boat in water and you'll see :)

[@MattO109]

I’m not a engineer but couldn’t u just glass the seem instead of dropping the whole lead ballast? Bolts didn’t look terrible

[@sailingsmalldreamingbig9022]

Some say it would work, some say it won't. Because the hull flexes and lead ballast does not it may tear the glassed seam.

[@MattO109]

@@sailingsmalldreamingbig9022 Ok definitely better to take off and redo it then, my keel is fully encapsulated so I don’t have to deal with a seam or bolts, but I imagine one day I might find myself working on a boat with a bolted keel.

[@LillBengt]

​@@sailingsmalldreamingbig9022 Did you consider to remove the bolts and let the joint dry (if needed) and mount new bolts, then just seal the joint from outside with a flexible material?

[@sailingsmalldreamingbig9022]

@@LillBengt I did, but finally decided to make it the hard way ;)

[@LillBengt]

@@sailingsmalldreamingbig9022 Thank you very much for your prompt response! Just for my understanding, what is the benefit of the hard way? I am asking because am I looking for an OE36 and I found one which I think has moisture between the keel and the hull.