When the yard saw the condition of the keel bolts they stated that they would not put this keel back on the boat even if I wanted them to. This was an obvious case of safety and liability issues.  What to do about this was my next issue and I had no idea how to proceed. Once again the internet came to my rescue! After some investigation I discovered that the bolts could be removed from the keel and replaced. It turned out that were two company’s that did this type of work. One company was Mars Metal in Ontario Canada. I got a price from them and a description of how they would proceed to repair the keel from their website.

As it turned out there was another company that did exactly the same thing and they were located within 20 miles of the location of my boat. I got a quote from a company named Broomfield and Sons. My second quote was less than my first quote and wanting to give my business to a local merchant I contracted them for the keel repair.  What they did was to use a torch to melt the lead on one side of the keel bolts and one by one remove them from the lead. They used the old bolts as a template to make new bolts and they placed the new bolts in the same position as the old ones. The new bolts were made of 316 stainless steel, a grade used for corrosion resistance. After this was done they poured molten lead into the hollowed out area of the keel. The keel was then ground into the correct shape and all I had to do was pay. Oh well that’s boating! The keel was delivered back to the yard and it was time to reattach the bugger. Here are some pictures of the repaired appendage.