Boat is dripping from keel, but not sure if actual hull is leaking?

[jimmwaller]

Hi all,

Question about a boat I'm thinking about buying. Owner says it's a LoneStar Riveria (Riviera?) and it looks like it's in fairly rough shape. The interior looks like it has had some kind of epoxy (gluvit?) treatment. I'm not seeing any leaks out of the rivets. BUT:

On the very bottom, there's a small keel that appears to be dripping when the boat gets pulled out of the water. However, I'm not sure this keel is actually attached to the rest of the boat. I attached photos (sorry, these are all I have, I only snapped a few and it's not actually my boat yet!). But you can see that there aren't any rivets around there. I kind of wonder if that keel section is hollow, and it fills with water when the boat sits in the water, and then the water drains when the boat is removed?

A good test would be to fill the interior with water and see if it drips out, but the owner just popped it into the water, and then opened up the drain plug and filled it a little with water so I could see that it doesn't leak. When I went under to check for leaks, I found this very slow drip from this keel. It might be water from the hull dripping, which would be bad. It could also just be contained to this little keel area.

Anyone know anything about these boats or similar construction? Is this keel actually connected to the hull somehow, so if the keel is dripping, the boat is leaking? Or is it possible that the drips from this keel are just water that was only trapped on this keel section? Or am I doing a terrible job of asking this question?

Thanks!!

 

[ricohman]

Of any of the aluminum boats I've owned, the keel strip is hollow and can fill with water. It's hard to tell from the pics what is going on here or the angle of the boat ect.

 

[jbcurt00]

Whats he asking?

Boat, motor and trailer?

Titled?

 

[jimmwaller]

hm yeah maybe I phrased it poorly

I'm pretty much asking what ricohman answered. There's a keel strip, and water was leaking out of there. I'm wondering if that means that the keel strip is hollow and water was just getting into the keel strip and leaking out? or if maybe this was the water from the hull leaking out and just coming out near the keel strip?

The reason this is important is because if water is just getting into and then dripping out of the keel strip, that's totally fine. But if water is leaking from the hull through to the outside and just dripping from near the keel strip, that means that there's actually a leak.

So, if keel strips are hollow, that's good news means that this guy probably doesn't have any major leaks through the hull!

Thanks for the info!!