Gary Warner wrote:
This is a 22' foot 1958 Chris Craft Sea Skiff.

One of the problems on our first day launch
this weekend was a trickle leak. It's occuring
where the bottom-most plywood strake meets
the keel.

Right. Which means that it won't swell & seal itself as the boat stays
in the water.


The leak is not so bad that it's a safety issue
but it's just something that if I can fix I'd really
like to.

And it's nice to keep the inside of the boat as dry as possible. Saves a
lot of maintenance later.


So a few questions:

+ I'm assuming that running calk or anything
simmilar along the *inside* part of this joint
won't really help. Is that right?

It's never worked for me


+ If the answer is to run calk from the outside,
do I have to remove the fasteners from that
bottom most board and get the calk between
it and the keel?? Or can it be done (and work)
without removing the fasteners?

Dunno... depends on how the seam looks. Is it cruddy with old paint
chips and dried up ancient sealing compound?


+ What calk should be used? I think that
this vintage Chris they used something
simmilar to 3M's 5200.

They didn't have it back then! I'd use 4200 instead because you'll be
able to cope with cleaning it off in the (hopefully distant) future. But
you'll want to get the the seam cleaned out as well as possible,
although be wary of gouging out original wood. It may reveal how solid
the wood is along that seam, I suspect one reason for the leak is that
it's soft from previous water penetration.

If the seam is soft, you might have to rebuild it with something like
epoxy & structural fillers.

Good luck

Doug King