my new extremely used v21

[JimsV21]

Hi everybody, J bought a mac v21 last saturday. I have a bunch of questions, but I will just ask a few for now. First off it"s a 1969 Venture, The keel has a big split in the leading edge, about a foot from the bottom of the keel and it is about a foot long hole/split. I tried to clean out all of the rusted metal flakes but I am wondering if there is a substance of some kind that could be used to keep it from rusting more once the split is reglassed? Another question. Can someone tell me how the mast is raised singlehanded? I've read alittle about a mast raising system but have never seen one. can somebody post a pic of one being employed? Also the parts needed to make one........ The boat is in pretty rough shape but its cleaning up pretty good so far. Very nice web site here, a lot of good info and helpful people. Glad I found you here. Any info given is very much apprciated, and thanks in advance.

[JohnAV222]

Everyone I hear from with these glassed in keels has to completely strip the fiberglass and get the rust off of the iron core then they re-glass the whole thing. Otherwise, you will always be fighting it.

I have to repaint mine as it's all iron and very rusty.

[Lloyd Franks]

Reglassing the keel is one answer. Another method is to get as much of the rust out as possible, then fill the gap with marine epoxy. You can get it at Home Depot,and it's easy to work with. The iron keels on these Ventures do require upkeep, but they work. My V24 is solid as a rock no matter what the chop. So, every so often you wire brush it and paint it with Rustoleum. Maintaining a sailboat is part of the experience of sailing

[Bob McLellan]

Although the keel om my '76 Venture did not have a fiberglass covering over the iron, I had much the same problem. Due to a really rough casting a filler was used to fair the keel and rust had gotten under the filler. The filler had to be removed and the rust stopped before reapplying clean fairing material (look up photobucket.com and open the "sailingaz" account for pix). I used POR15 products: RestoGrip for filler and black POR15 paint and a POR15 primer. After remover the old filler, I used the black POR15 (it is a rust converter); two coats. Then the tiecoat primer, followed by the filler. Ater shaping, I used 5 coats of POR15 black. Be very sure to follow the instructions as to time between coats. If completely dry, the next coat will not adhere (without more tiecoat primer). So far nothing has stuck to the black keel. Look up POR15 on your search engine on the net.

[JimsV21]

Thanks for the advice and replying to my questions. The Poris rust converter and filler sounda like the thing to do. I've been spending so much time repairing and refinishing, my wife is starting to make coments that Im obsessed with my boat and not paying any attention to her. I wish she would understand the time thats neccessary to completely overhaul the boat, inside and out.

[Lloyd Franks]

Take her out to dinner...

[Bob McLellan]

Jim, That actually IS POR15 (AS IN POUR FIFTEEN) if you look it up on google. I like it as my son, who has an auto restoration business working mainly on old Porsches, introduced it to me. When I called the 800 number for the company, they said that 3-coats would be enough. But be sure to get it under the filler or the rust will come back and lift the filler areas.