Forums, Everything Else, Smelly Contessa!!!

Colin Pritchard at 22/08/2009 11:08:55
I have started getting a pretty horrible smell emanating from the depths of my bilge especially during bashing about in rough seas. I seem to recall seeing a thread about something like this on the old discussion board, but can’t find it. Can anyone advise.

This post might appear as if from a new forum member, but I’m not really. My details seem to have disappeared so I’ve re-registered.

Many thanks.

Colin Pritchard (Rampage of Lymington)

Conor Owens at 23/08/2009 22:47:55
Hi,

My boat had this problem a few years ago. It seemed to persist despite a thorough cleaning of the bilge. The boat then needed some remedial work at Jeremy Rogers’ yard and while in there they drilled several holes in the sides of the keel above the lead ballast and drained out quite a few liters of foul smelling liquid.

It seems that when the hull is moulded the keel is then filled with some epoxy and chopped strand and the lead ballast (already cast to shape) is lowered into this loose mix. Sometimes this left voids which over many years get filled with water containing lots of other stuff!

Once drained Jeremy then injected resin to fill these voids. That was about 4 years ago and it has been a definite improvement.

Regards,

Conor.

Colin Pritchard at 24/08/2009 18:29:41
Thanks Conor, I’ve given the bilge a really good clean with disinfectant but the problem hasn’t gone away. I wonder if any other owner has had this and knows where to drill the drain holes.

Regards

Colin Pritchard

doug at 26/08/2009 11:10:13
Even a small trickle from the head’s seacocks can cause problems. A sprinkle of talc under the cocks will betray the problem

Carolus at 26/08/2009 12:16:59
I had just read through the old boards and could locate quickly. Here is the extract that I think was being referred to.

Colin Pritchard at 26/08/2009 20:26:29
Thanks very much Carolus, the old posts you have found seem to cover what I’m looking for and the symptoms seem similar.

I don’t think my pongs are coming from either the water tank or the heads. I’ve replaced the old water tank and spent ages cleaning round the heads, seacocks and under the engine etc. The pong seems to come from somewhere else and the inaccessible zone above the lead sounds a likely source. I think I will have to try drilling some small holes from outside and see what comes out.

Colin Pritchard

James Moore at 02/09/2009 16:09:56
I am the James who was in the old thread – we did the remedial work last winter and the smell has gone.
We drilled a hole at the fore end of the keel at the top of the lead – tap the keel with a hammer – you will find a level where it starts to sound hollow – that is the top of the lead ( Jeremys method).
About 4 pints of foul smelling liquid drained out.
You will find if you look at the very aft end of the sump under the cabin sole that there is a gap in the moulding where water gets into the void between the lead and cabin floor moulding – this is where the evil lurks. We then flushed this through – ie pour water and variety of cleaning/degreasing agents in from the cabin and it runs out of your hole in the keel. When this had run clean we let it dry for some weeks and then filled it with resin poured in from the top until it ran in no more and the gap was covered over. We then filled and epoxied the hole in the keel – job done! No more evel smell.
It takes a leap of faith to drill holes in the bottom of your boat but it is definitely worth it!
Hope this is all clear – any questions let me know.

James – Katisha

Colin Pritchard at 09/09/2009 21:48:52
James

Thanks very much for describing where my smelly problem might be. I will take the leap of faith and tackle the job as you suggest.

Thanks again.

Colin Pritchard

Colin Pritchard at 10/10/2009 10:17:28
James

It’s as you foretold. Drilling a couple of small holes above the lead produced several litres of very smelly liquid. And there is a small gap at the aft end of the bilge where the glassfibre is lacking resin. Water can be observed trickling throuh this gap and it then appears throuh the holes above the keel lead.

Thanks for your help.

Colin Pritchard

doug at 11/10/2009 12:19:21
A very intesting thread.
I think I have the idea but am a little worried about doing the right thing. Would anybody be willing to annotate a sketch, showing whats what, and post that?

Colin Pritchard at 11/10/2009 19:22:39
Doug
I don’t know how to post an image on the forum, but if you email me (find the address in the online handbook) I will send you a sketch.
Colin Pritchard

George Isted at 12/10/2009 13:14:01

Colin, some pictures on the forum would be great. it would tell a thousand words and all that.

You can post a picture either by cut and paste or click on the “Insert Image” button as the top of the “post reply” screen. It should be the 7th button from the left.

In particular a pic of the gap as the aft end of the bilge would be handy. I’m not aware of having a gap here on Concerto but then I don’t have an overly smelly bilge (yet).

James Moore at 19/10/2009 17:46:15
Doug,
I could possibly do better than that! I see you are located in Plymouth – as am I – I could meet you and show you if you would like. Otherwise I could draw a picture and either send it or attempt to load onto website – not sure how but I could try!

James Moore

doug at 21/10/2009 21:29:34
Colin….
Thanks very much for the offer. It looks like I could get the inside information from James.

James….
If you could post a rough sketch to the address in the handbook I would be most grateful (Brian Bird – Genie). I see we live pretty near each other.
My swinging mooring is lifted at the end of the month so I have come out of the water just today. The boat will be ashore in Millbrook until March.
……….Regards Brian
Edited: doug on 2009-10-21 21:30:41

James Moore at 03/11/2009 17:52:21
Brian,

Sorry to delay in replying – been away.
I am going to write a fuller description of what we did for George to post on website.
I am in St Germans so would be happy to meet up either at my boat or yours. I think my details are in the members list – phone etc – give me a ring.
James.

Colin Pritchard at 27/03/2010 13:38:05
An update on this for anyone interested.
Having thought about this for a long time I decided that the best job was to fill the void with epoxy resin. The job is now done, method as follows:
I sealed the gap at the aft end of the bilge using epoxy putty, accessed from inside the boat, then drilled a 10mm dia hole at the highest point on each side of the forward end of the keel on the outside. With the lower drain holes (drilled earlier to drain the void) covered with duct tape I then filled the void via the upper holes with water. The volume of water that drained back out, after removing the duct tape gave an idea of the volume of the void at around 7 litres, and it showed that the void was connected port to std at the forward end of the keel
I then flushed out the void using degreasers etc to try to clean the inside as much as possible.
Things were then left over the winter to allow some measure of drying out.
Last week, I built a temporary tent around each side of the keel and set a fan heater going inside to get things as warm as possible and to aid the flow of the epoxy. The lower drain holes were sealed with duct tape and epoxy was mixed in 0.5 litres batches. This was squirted into the upper holes using old 0.5 litre domestic hand soap dispensers and fairy liquid bottles via short lengths of 10 mm tubing pushed into the upper holes.
Progress of void filling could be monitored by tapping the void area. As predicted, 7 litres of epoxy went in before it got to the top holes.
After the epoxy had hardened the upper holes were plugged with epoxy putty and all holes have been further sealed by cutting back over a small area of the gel coat around each hole and rebuilding with epoxy and glass mat.
We should now have a non smelly boat!!

JohnF at 20/02/2014 11:40:53
Hi, now in 2014 I’m just in process of doing the same with my boat, having tried all sorts of other ways to eliminate smells I’m following James Moore’s “technical paper” and your notes – very helpful and giving me the confidence to drill holes in the hull! As predicted several litres of horrible black fluid were released and we’re now working through a cycle of cleaning and flushing in preparation for filling the void. My question is what epoxy might be recommended?
Factors I think are – sufficiently liquid to be easily injectible and flow to fill all spaces, not too hot in curing, permanent seal (particularly from inside bilge) and providing a solid base for hull repair (to be completed with mat and resin). I have wondered about injectible closed cell foam but suspect that if a reasonably priced standard epoxy is the answer – but would really grateful for suggestions of the particular epoxy to use.
Thanks.

Colin Pritchard at 14/03/2014 10:54:03
Hi JohnF
Apologies if this reply is not soon enough after your query.

We used Wests epoxy, and took some time researching the best kind of hardener to use with it. We needed a hardener that would allow the mixture to be as runny as possible, bearing in mind we were doing the job outside in March. I can’t remember which hardener (fast or slow) we ended up with, but it worked fine and I think we used around 10 litres of epoxy (which is expensive so look for someone who can supply a large tin!). Waiting for a warmish day was frustrating and in the end, to get the job done I built a temporary polythene enclosure around the keel, to keep the cold out while we injected the epoxy. We mixed the epoxy in small quantities, around .5 litre at a time, and injected it via a narrow tube inserted into predrilled holes in the keel side, working our way up from the lowest point. A hole is needed near the highest point to allow air to escape. I plugged each hole with a small wooden plug, as we proceeded, these were drilled out and plugged with epoxy after the main job was finished. Planning was key! The whole operation including erecting the polythene tent to finishing injecting was about 3 hours. Removing the plugs and finishing off was done a few days later. Hope this helps.
Colin P

Colin Pritchard at 14/03/2014 10:58:29
Just realised that some of my reply doesn’t match my earlier post, describing what we did, sorry about that. I should have read through the previous posts first! The earlier post is the more accurate. I hope there’s no confusion.
Colin P

JohnF at 14/03/2014 12:38:57
Many thanks, this is useful – and great timing as we’re just waiting for this dry warm weather to complete drying out the bilge (vented via the drain holes and the original interior hole) and curing. Thanks.

samourai at 22/11/2016 20:51:31
Hi everybody, just a couple of pics concerning the drilling in the keel.
Actually, after reading all the posts, I thought it could be helpful to have a visual idea of the situation.
There was about 4 to 5 Lts of smelly water that came out. Afterwards we flushed the whole void with
bilge cleaner and a lot of water. Quite a job, but was really worth it. We used then a Karcher vacuum cleaner which has the possibility of also blowing air out in order to dry out the area. The keel area will now dry until spring and then we will fill it up with West System epoxy resin (slow hardener).

samourai at 22/11/2016 20:52:59
[broken image removed]drilling the keel
Edited: samourai on 2016-11-22 20:54:18

samourai at 22/11/2016 20:55:13
[broken image removed] title=“smelly water”
Edited: samourai on 2016-11-22 20:56:39

waratah912 at 17/12/2016 13:58:05
There’s a paper in the technical papers section of the website which covers this :
http://www.co32.org/sites/default/files/Co32BilgeSmells.pdf

samourai at 08/05/2017 10:48:44
Hi everybody,
I am at the point to fill up the keel with West System Epoxy. I did follow exactly the technical procedure for drilling in the keel and cleaning the area with some bilge cleaner and a lot of water. It was left all winter to dry out and now we have to fill it up .The boat is lying in Greece and the temperature at the moment is in between 12 deg celcius at night and 23 deg celcius during the day. The void in the keel seems to be in between 4 and 5 liters. My concern is how to pour all this epoxy in without creating an exothermic reaction which could damage seriously the boat with heat. I am using the West System Epoxy and the question is which hardener to use : 206 (slow) or 209 (extra slow). I have read Colin’s posts but he doesn’t specify which hardener he was using and that is the important bit. Plus the fact that I don’t really think you can manage to fill up 0.5l epoxy at once without creating a serious exothermic reaction. Does anybody has any more information on the subject ?

George Isted at 08/05/2017 13:03:03
You are right to be concerned about the heat that will be created even with slow epoxy hardener when there is a high volume of epoxy being used. You will either need to do this in small batches or I would suggest using polyester resin.

You are just trying to fill the void, it is non-structural and this is (I believe) what Rogers would use to fill the voids. By using polyester resin you can use a very small amount of catalyst for a longer and slower cure so heat is much better managed.

if in the UK I would suggest you call and get advice from www.ecfibreglasssupplies.co.uk

hope this helps.
George

samourai at 08/05/2017 20:33:02
Hi George,
Thanks a lot for your quick post. I am seriously considering your advice since we have concerns about exothermic reaction, plus the fact that we don’t know how dry is in there. So at least with polyester it should still work. Two more questions:
1-any idea if it is better to use isophtalic resin or orthophtalic ?
2-is polyester liquid enough to get in there through an 10mm hole with a syringe ?
As you said, this is non-structural, but it is still a big void in there and I would like to be sure this is
going to be filled up correctly.

George Isted at 09/05/2017 11:14:48
Isophthalic polyester resin has a greater resistance to water – most boats are manufactured using this resin due to increased resistance to osmosis (that’s not to say newer boats don’t get it – just that it’s less likely – or they can stay in the water for longer without problems).Yes, the polyester resin can be/is just as fluid at epoxy. Like epoxy there are many different manufacturers and the resins have different properties.

samourai at 09/05/2017 19:22:28
This afternoon I called J.R. yard and had a chat with Dave Flower (I hope I am spelling it right) who is in charge of the resin jobs.
He confirmed that they usually use polyester resin to fill up the voids in the keels but also said that you can use epoxy with a slow hardener. In both cases it is important to do the filling in steps and wait a bit in order to avoid overheating. To be on the safe side, I have decided to do the job with isophtalic polyester resin. It is also much cheaper than epoxy and easier to use in this case. Dave Flower also confirmed that I could use a minimum of 1% catalyst which will give more time to work, but not less. In order to fill up the voids in steps, I have drilled several holes on both sides of the keel at different levels and try to use a 60 ml syringe to fill it bit by bit. Hopefully, it should work fine.
I will post again when the job is done.
Thanks again George for the advice.

waratah912 at 09/05/2017 19:52:34
Some photographs of the job in progress would be interesting, or maybe even a technical paper?

George Isted at 10/05/2017 11:00:40
No probs,

Dave at JR knows his onions so it sounds like you are going down the right route for this repair.

samourai at 03/11/2017 19:08:25
Hi everyone, just a little update concerning the filling up of the keel voids.
After many months of driyng out, we decided to start the process. We took the following steps using Polyester Isophtalic Resin Cristic 491 PA and the Catalyst Butanox M50. The temperatures were between 20c and 25c so we thought it was better to add only 1% of catalyst which is a strict minimum. This gave us the time to work and also permitted the resin to flow down into the voids. On each side of the keel we had previously drilled about 7 holes of 10mm diameter and we began to fill up from the lower holes. We used 60ml syringes to pour the resin into the holes which had the advantage to give a little push inside the void. When a hole was starting to overflow we had to block it with duct tape until cured. We decided to stay on the safe side to avoid any exothermic reaction and we only poured 100 ml (max 200 ml) on each dose. In between doses we waited about 1h30 to 2h00 to make sure the resin was well cured. The whole procedure lasted 6 afternoons and the total amount of resin was nearly 3000 ml. In the end we used a rubber hammer to check if all the voids were filled up. We finished the job by patching the holes with epoxy filler. I hope this will be helpfull for any owner with a similar problem.
Edited: samourai on 2017-11-13 21:47:37