Removing Keel Bolts
July, 2002


Since getting the ballast keel moved forward at the end of May, various small projects and family activities kept Dave busy, but in July we traveled to New England and participated in IYRS' Classic Yacht Cruise. After the first few minutes of actually sailing on our first Concordia (Dominic and Debbie Champa's beautiful Praxilla) Dave was chomping at the bit to get back to Florida and get back to work on Sarah.

 

The majority of this deals with driving the keelbolts out of the ballast keel, but for the record, some things that didn't work:

Hydraulic jack just moved the whole boat
1/4" steel and allthread just bent without budging the keel bolt

Some things that did:

Bigger hammer
Using dremel tool in the very beginning if a bolt starts to mushroom


Over parts of four days, Dave and friends [this was one of those situations like sanding bottom paint when you can tell real quick who your real friends are] drove out the14 keel bolts and two lifting rings from the ballast keel. Special credit goes to Randy Carter, who has a welding shop at the boat yard and who not only suggested a bigger hammer, but provided same and did a large amount of the swinging. Randy's suggestion was something along the lines of, "You buy the beer, I'll swing the hammer."

I missed out on the first day's festivities, but on the second day I took my turn with the sledge hammer. "Ah, this isn't bad."

As I swung the sledge hammer the second day my main concern was to just keep smiling so the guys wouldn't know my arms were about to snap off.

The third day was much of the same but I knew in my heart that if I had to participate a fourth day, I'd of been brushing my teeth by holding the toothbrush stationary on the counter and moving my head side to side. Believe me, I had very short turns with the sledge hammer. I don't know how the guys did it.

If there are any ladies reading this, talk about a guy magnet. Just set a sledge hammer out and something that needs beating on. Folks would come over to see what all the noise was, and, especially if the hammer was in my hands, politely offer to help. There were times when folks lined up, everyone wanting to try their hand at sledge hammer swinging.


As you can see, the original iron keel bolts (1955) from the cast iron ballast keel were in amazingly good shape.

What weren't in good shape were the portions that had made contact with the wood keel and floors.
Anyone who has done this miserable job, especially in Florida in July will appreciate this view. After trying many things, including "Ed's Hole Saw" theory, which worked especially well when a bolt started to mushroom farther down than the dremel tool could reach.
The best results were made by using a pair of vice grips and lining up a Grade 8 bolt at the same angle as the keel bolt and giving it a whack with the sledge hammer. It took the force of the 10 lb. sledge hammer to jar the bolt and anything less than Grade 8 just mushroomed or bent.
This keel bolt next to the ledge in the shape of the keel was the most trouble.
The downside of the vice grips/sledge hammer theory was that it had to be realligned after each swing. It was also pretty slow going until the keel bolt started moving as sledge hammer would send the driving bolt and vice grips flying (often in opposite directions). We had a pretty good system though with one person swinging the sledge hammer and another chasing down and realligning the bolt/vice grips.

By using different length Grade 8 bolts, he could get a keel bolt started and then drive it down with the next size longer bolt.

Dave tried to adapt several items into "bolt holders" but the key was getting the driving bolt directly alligned with the keel bolt, but nothing was as effective as the vice grip.

Another thing that helped tremendously was keeping the debris vacuumed out of the top of the holes as the keel bolts started to move down. (Shop Vac in bottom left corner of picture)
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