Doug:

Long time no see.

>After several years of inactivity, I plan to get Kokomis (#435) back
into the fray. As a probable) result of several salt-water trips, the
steel which bends upwards in the bilge from the channels holding the
keel bolts, which is bolted to the bunk faces, is badly corroded. It
looks like if flexed it would break.

Has anyone encountered the same problem? Has anyone come up with a
simpler fix than replacing the whole I-beam or a welding job in place? I
wonder, given the "brick sh'house" construction of the boat, if the
corroded part is really needed?
<

It may be possible that the basic hull laminate could take the load but I wouldn't take that chance.

When the fibreglass interior was introduced, the steel floor timbers, which are rusting on your boat, were replaced by fibreglass floor timbers.  The material we used was called Liasil, which is a 13 oz/sq ft unidirectional fibreglass fabric.  We would take a full width (60" if memory serves correctly), wet it out with resin and fold it until it made a 4" wide belt.  Three of these belts were layed onto the hull, each centred over a pair of keelbolts, oriented so that the unidirectional fibres ran athwartships.

On your boat, you could:

1/ remove the keelbolts

2/ remove the rusty steel

3/ roughen up the area where the replacement floors will go (grinder with 40 grit paper)

4/ plug the keel bolt holes.

5/ add fibreglass timbers as described above.  These should extend up the bunk walls by a couple of inches.  Note that the bunk walls should also have been roughened in step 3.

6/ paint the floors

7/ after the paint dries, bolt the ends of the floors through the bunk walls

8/ replace the keelbolts.

 

For the sake of brevity, I have of course, omitted numerous steps such as adding spacers to support the floorboards.

Good luck

Richard