Trojan Boat Forum

My 1978 F32 had a smell in it that I finally found to be from the stagnant water trapped in the hollow keel. I drilled a couple of access holes and the smell almost drove me out of the boat. After draining the water and putting some cleaner in and draining it several times, the smell grew much less noticeable. If I seal the holes back up, water will eventually get back in and the smell will return. I am looking for a long term solution to this problem. One way would be to remove the rather thin layer of fiberglass covering the hollow keel and leave it open so that the water could be removed easily and would not stagnate. The other thought would be to fill the hollow keel so that the water could not collect. Has anyone found a good solution to this problem?

comodave wrote:If I seal the holes back up, water will eventually get back in and the smell will return.

I am not sure that is a correct conclusion. I do believe that it can be sealed and kept dry... look for areas further aft down the centerline that are porous and seal them up. e.g.

rmatt wrote:I had the same smell issue with my F32. It was a small crack in the fiberglass under the floor boards from the steps to the v berth. The fiberglass under the floor boards in not thick and the hollow keel is deep under that fiberglass. No chance of hitting anything with a drill. Just stay in the middle. As said before it can be sucked dry, deodorized and a small strip of glass cloth over the incision and the smell is gone. Well at least in my case.
Bob

Others have decided to allow it to be open by putting holes fore and aft in the thin cover.....
Have you done a search on hollow keel as this has been dealt with before? Good solutions:
http://www.trojanboats.net/wforum/viewt ... ollow+keel
http://www.trojanboats.net/wforum/viewt ... ollow+keel

Had the same issue with our 36.
We drilled several holes and allowed to dry,
then we filled it with expandable marine two part floatation
foam and then repaired holes.
Entire bilge areas are being coated several times with gelcoat and obvious questionable areas were repaired prior to gelcoating.
If you intend to do this please understand the foam and how it expands.
You must allow room for complete expansion or relief holes or it can cause structural damage.
SRD
1980 F36

Had the same issue on my f-32. Drilled & tapped a fitting into the keel & installed a 5/16 copper tube with compression fitting at the bulkhead. Used a hand pump to remove the water. put some bleach in the keel. I pump it out in the fall when changing the oil. Only get about 1 gallon each season. No smell since.

this was a HUGE topic on the old TBOA website back in the day.

Not the Cnada site, but the REAL TBOA - John Hunter site

Anyone know what ever happened to TABOMA II ?

He was a real big supporter of that website.

RWS

comodave,

Can you or anyone that has actually done this on an F-32 please post some pictures as to I can tell exactly where I should drill them on my boat? Or just give me the exact measurements maybe from say I don't know the V-birth door centerline of the boat?

adm1217 wrote:Can you or anyone that has actually done this on an F-32 please post some pictures as to I can tell exactly where I should drill them on my boat?

+1
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Greetings - Heiner

I live in Tucson and the boat is in Michigan. It is in a rather dark storage barn and pictures do not come out very well. It is very easy to find the hollow keel. Under the hatch in front of the head is where I drilled the forward hole. I first took a screw driver and pushed around until I found a soft area. I just stuck the screwdriver through first on the assumption that it would not penetrate the hull. It worked well. The glass on the top of the hollow area is very thin so it must not be structural, just cosmetic. I enlarged the forward hole so I could stick a shop vac hose in and suck up the horrible smelling water. I drilled one in the engine room so I could pour some RV gray water holding tank deodorant in the engine room hole. It ran forward to the hole in the forward hole. I left it in there overnight and then vacuumed it out and the smell was much better, although not completely gone. I got some Kanberra gel and left them in the area when I came home to Arizona. We will see if the claims are true about Kanbera gel when I go back to the boat on the 29th.

What I have been thinking of doing is either grinding out the covering fiberglass and leaving the keel open and then the water would not stagnate. Or filling the hollow keel with something such as a closed cell foam or ??? (something else). If anyone has any ideas of what would work economically to fill the keel, please let me know. I do not want to use epoxy due to possible thermal runaway and the cost would be quite high. With closed cell foam the expansion might be a problem, but the thin fiberglass on the top would probably be the first thing to let go if the expansion of the foam got too much.

I am also thinking about fiberglassing the limber hole closed from the engine room to the galley area to contain any spill in the engine room and also to contain any fumes in the engine room. Has anyone done this?

RWS wrote:this was a HUGE topic on the old TBOA website back in the day.

Not the Cnada site, but the REAL TBOA - John Hunter site

Anyone know what ever happened to TABOMA II ?

He was a real big supporter of that website.

RWS

That was a good site , I thought Taboma was on here at one time .

An update on the Kanberra gel. I got to the boat today and there is no smell left. It appears to work well in getting rid of smells.