SUJET :

Dear members of this group,

Last weekend my Feeling / Kelt 29 was taken out of the water for the first time after purchasing the boat. While the boat was being lifted out of the water, we saw that the keel was a bit loose under the boat. Between the attachment of the hull and the keel, a gap of about 1 millimeter was visible, there was also movement in the keel when we pulled it. After placing the boat on its stand, we saw clearly that the water was being squeezed out of this gap by the weight of the boat.

I have visually inspected the keel bolts inside, they look good (new?) and shiny. After some doubts, I decided to remove 1 keel bolt. This was quite well secured but with 2 men we managed to unscrew it. The bolt looked very good and there was no rust on it. After some measuring work we were able to establish that the keel bolt was exactly the same length as the screw hole in the keel. This will likely have resulted in the keel not being pulled tight enough against the hull of the boat.

Now I am looking for technical documentation of my Feeling / Kelt 29 and specifically for the version of the 1.60m fixed keel. On this site I found the technical documentation of the Kelt 29, however only the technical documentation of the lifting keel version can be found here.

has anyone else experienced the problem mentioned above?

Is there anyone on this forum who has this information and technical documentation?

The keel is cast iron, so I think the structural integrity is fine, can anyone confirm that it is indeed cast iron with mounted in screw thread?


Kind regards,

Berni Ruedisueli
from The Netherlands