Freedom 25 Keel Bolt Access

[Wilfred934]

Hi All,

I have been looking for a Freedom 25 over here in the UK for some time and I looked at one last week which had a puzzling feature - maybe someone could shed light on this for me? When I lifted the floor boards to look into the keel bolt cavity I fould that the entire area had been filled with cured resin - prehaps Epoxy - but I'm not sure. Anyway it was a milky white colour. The depth of fill means that one cannot see the keel bolts at all! I found this an odd thing to do since it may be necessary some day to drop the keel & re-seat it and how on earth could one do this through a solid bed of cured resin? I guess that a few days patient grinding with a Dremel tool or similar plus "gentle" use of a chisel may well do it - but it would be a difficult and uncomfortable job that I'm not sure I want to tackle.

Was this a "usual" feature of TPI built F25's or is this just some "brainwave" of a previous owner? Anyway feedback would be appreciated since otherwise the boat was in good condition with a very "dry" hull when checked with the TRAMEX Skipper moisture meter.

All/Any comments appreciated.

Thanks/regards,

Wilf Bishop
F21 DAYDREAM

[unfetteredalexandria]

Mine is not that way...

[Michel]

They probably had leaks and / or rust around the bolts and wanted the area to look tidy when selling the boat.....poor sods..... now they raise a lot more suspicion about what could be wrong there.

[Teke's Pride]

Wilf,

Have you seen the boat out of the water to inspect the keel?
I have no experience with F25s so I need to ask, was the F25 offered in a Shoal Draft version?

I ask those questions because what you describe sounds a lot like what that area looks like on my TPI built Shoal Draft F21 (no removeable keel bolts because the Pb is enclosed in a fiberglass skeg that is part of the hull).

[hxschiller]

The keel is a lead casting that is fastened in the conventional way with keel bolts (studs) onto the bottom of a GRP stub keel. My 1982 F-25 had some problems with the rear-most keel bolt leaking, but the remainder were fine. The keel bolts are stainless steel so rust should not be a big problem (not like Catalina 25's). I would test to see how strong the stuff the P.O. poured in there really was. I know T-P did use resin with what seemed like Vermiculite mixed in to fill the aft-most compartment in the stub keel. I dug this out rather easily so that I could put sealant under that rear-most washer and bolt. Consult with members of the J-24 fleet in your area. The J-24s were built similarly, and they may have some comments/suggestions.