Sailboat hulls

[x101airborne]

There are a couple sail boat hulls for free around here and I can have them for picking them up. I dont mind disposing of them, but want to make sure there is lead in them before getting them. Is there any way to tell by make or model? Any idea how much lead can be in a 26 ft hull?

[Oregon Coot]

What is the hull material?

If wood, than you will generally have a bolted on lead or cast iron keel. Fiberglass can be either internal or external ballast. If external than you can easily scrape away some paint to look at the material. If internal ballast, it is likely encapsulated and figuring out what is behind the glass wall is tougher.

My own sailboat has a glass hull with 7000# of lead carried internally. The keel is made up of a combination of mystery lead, linotype and many, many buckets of wheel weights, lead shot and whatever else I could scrounge when I built the boat.

Depending on design, you would probably have somewhere between 1000 & 2000# of lead in a 26' boat. Unfortunately many production boats, particularly of the size you mention, do not use lead as it is an expensive option. Being as you are in Texas with its shallow water, you will find a high perentage of boats have swing keels which almost never contain lead. An older wooden boat with an external bolt-on keel is probably lead of some type.

If you are looking at production boats, than a moment asking questions such as "What is the keel on a Tanzer 22 made of" on a sailing forum will probably get you your answer.

[x101airborne]

Oh, I would love to get 1000 pounds of lead from one boat. I believe these are glass hulls. The wife said that I could get two and after cutting the lead out, put one in the yard for the kids to play in. I thought that it would be a good place not only to let them play, but to teach some basic boating and knot tying and such. If I could get 1000 pounds per boat, I would be extatic!!! One also has the extendable aluminum masts on it and they go too. That has to be over 100 pounds of recyclable aluminum, not to mention neat project material.

[asp]

This website might be of some help: http://sailboatdata.com/firstpage_builderlist.asp

It's not the most intuitive or user friendly thing out there, but it's got a lot of info.

[xd4584]

I was looking at a 26 footer a while back. The keel was almost 4000 pounds. Couldn't find any friends with big enough trailers to haul it

[Poygan]

We have a 22' Catalina and it has a 600 lb cast iron swing keel.

[x101airborne]

I have a 34 foot dual tandem trailer and Super duty 4x4 at my disposal. This trailer is big enough to haul a small dozer. What I am planning on doing is backing up to the boat, unhitching the trailer after chalking the wheels, lower the ramps and cover with a sheet of 1 inch plywood to make a solid ramp, run a 30 foot towstrap around the back of the boat and connect it to the truck with chains. Then drive forward slowly. I havent ever done this, so I may be all wet, but I think it is the easiest way I can conceve to get it loaded.

[x101airborne]

I hope it is not full of cast iron. I would be disappointed. Kids would still have fun, though.

[Silvercreek Farmer]

You could also bury it when you are done and make a root cellar. Saw that one somewhere recently.

[CLAYPOOL]

Cast Iron is scrap also...prepaired iron goes for a higher rate up here...cast blocks (engines) cast cranks, heads, etc...striped of valves, etc. also...lots of gas money there for going and getting kids toys...

[dsol]

I wonder how many sailboats will be scrapped out after hurricane Sandy? If I lived closer to the east coast, I might be exploring some boat yards.

[evan price]

Our reservoir is about 40 feet low to the point the marina is high and dry. Found a whole bucket of large weights, lead mud anchors and a drop in sailboat keel board in the mud. The stolen cars are being found the water is so low.

[PS Paul]

I wonder how many sailboats will be scrapped out after hurricane Sandy? If I lived closer to the east coast, I might be exploring some boat yards.

Now THERE is a great idea!!

Funny how we all kinda have "one track minds" and look at the value of an otherwise perfectly good sailboat and see only how many boolits we can get out of it!! LOL!!:bigsmyl2:

I was looking at some downrigger balls the other day and caught myself thinking the same thing. Pretty funny.

[cajun shooter]

Why can't you take a core sample with a drill auger?If they are willing to give them away then they will not mind if they have a hole in them.

[Bob Krack]

Then drive forward slowly. I havent ever done this, so I may be all wet, but I think it is the easiest way I can
Trey,

MIGHT work, but if you have access (Hah) to a winch I would try that first. I do have serious doubts about your proposed method.

Good luck brother,

Bob

[XTR]

It depends on the manufacturer whether the keel is lead or iron or in some cases concrete. The better manufactures used lead, but if it's from the 70s when a lot of US manufacturers were going out of business they sometimes cut corners. You can look them up, I'd suggest getting make and model and going to the sailnet.com forums and looking around and asking if you can't find the answer. I probably wouldn't go in there talking about chopping up boats to make bullets. :)

[High Lord Gomer]

I have a 34 foot dual tandem trailer and Super duty 4x4 at my disposal. This trailer is big enough to haul a small dozer. What I am planning on doing is backing up to the boat, unhitching the trailer after chalking the wheels, lower the ramps and cover with a sheet of 1 inch plywood to make a solid ramp, run a 30 foot towstrap around the back of the boat and connect it to the truck with chains. Then drive forward slowly. I havent ever done this, so I may be all wet, but I think it is the easiest way I can conceve to get it loaded.
Having completed many redneck loading attempts similar to this I suggest not trying that. Once you unhook the trailer and start to drag something up onto the rear of it, it will tilt and likely bind on the cable you have going over the top of it.

Another danger is that the wheel chocks might not hold and if the trailer does get forced up over them it may then be released with enough force to drive it into the rear of your truck.

A winch to pull it up would be my first attempt. Ideally, if you could somehow raise one end of the boat up enough to back most of the trailer under it, that would make it much easier.

Also, wiping some grease on the hull or even just hosing down the trailer will make it slide on easier.

[Bulldogger]

Best of luck with this! Get someone to stand by and take pictures and video. I'm sure this will be interesting.
BDGR

[johnnybar]

Invest in two things:
Time with Google search engine, preferrably with model, year & hull #
If still in doubt, a good quality 1/4" drill bit and cordless drill.

PS: Tearing one down is a huge chore...use sawzall instead of circular or chain saws...less glass dust. Wear a paint/dust 3m mask, the rubber type with cartridge filters to prevent silicosis. Absolutely do not breathe the fumes when smelting lead with fiberglass resin in it!!!! Huge health mistake, wear the same mask then too.

[popper]

1" plywood won't take 2000# load. Leave the rails up and use railroad ties to build the ramp. Or hire a sling boom or fork lift.

[Jal5]

I think the last idea is the best one- hire a sling boom and operator. Just to be on the safe side...

[Jim Flinchbaugh]

I'd drill a hole like 2 others suggested, You can tell lead real easy that way- of course you still dont know what the alloy

[sw282]

A good strong hand held electro magnet should tell you if its iron or not even thru the hull

[RoGrrr]

If offered a sailboat, I would find out where I could scrap out the pieces of the hull and go to pick up the boat for scrap if they require you to remove the hull. There's a possibility that you could get the keel alone and just leave the hull for the "big league" scrap removal team. They probably wouldn't notice or care the the keel is gone. Heck, they might even load the keel on your trailer if you play your cards right. It doesn't hurt to ask. The hull is probably fiberglas or wood and both are "chainsawable" and the chainsaw is so much faster than the sawzall. It produces chips rather than dust. Also the sawzall teeth will fill up with lead so the chain is your best bet. Fiberglas will not cause silicosis, that's from sandblasting with white sand. But the dust mask and full face shield or even a full face respirator is a good idea.
I'd take the chainsaw and saw the hull into manageable pieces and cart them away to the scrapper, leaving the keel and aluminum mast for the second visit.
I would then have laid the keel on a tarp under cinder blocks and saw the keel with a chain saw and put those pieces in either the truck or trailer. The tarp is to collect the sawdust (actually lead chips) so you don't lose them.

[John Boy]

I wonder how many sailboats will be scrapped out after hurricane Sandy?
I live on the Jersey Coast and Super Storm Sand hit our town directly. Within a 25 mile radius with probably 50 plus marinas I have not seen one damaged sailboat - all powder boats. Also haven't seen one sailboat up against a utility pole among the close to a 1000 homes partially or totally destroyed.

[Revolver]

I went through this this summer. The sailboat was a cookie cutter mass produced boat, the manufaturer stated the hull was 97% lead, 3% antimony. Boats made in small shops may be unknown mixed alloys from salvage. The boat was free, I found a buddy that wanted the boat for a play place for his kid. We had the boat dropped off at his place, the boatyard that gave it to use lent us some shores. We unbolted the keel from the inside then tightened the shores until the keel was hanging. At this point adhesive was holding it. We used chisels and sledges to separate it. Those adhesives are strong, it was a lot of work.

This is a video of my buddy chiseling on the keel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy_6nmxCGko

Next was cutting it into moveable chunks. 600-800 lbs seemed to be the ticket. Chainsaw, lots of work, lots of sharpening. Very tiring.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5oz9IJ_5O0

Hauling the chunks home was the easiest part, but still a lot of work. Used an engine hoist to load them on my truck.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF2zE6uLgCk

The more nerve wracking parts was lowering the boat to the ground once the keel was gone. You can only lower it so far before the shores bottom out. We ended up buying some railroad ties and cutting them up then stacking them like house movers do. Remove some, lower boat. Repeat. We sunk some 4x4 posts in the ground on each side to keep it from tipping. That was a stressful time!

The project took all summer whittling away at it here and there. The mast is aluminum which he is going to haul for scrap. A keel is a lot of work! However I will say that I'm still working my way through melting the sawdust!

http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/j407/mainejunker/a5b9044b.jpg

[willk]

Don't forget, sailing is an expensive sport and many parts of a sailboat are fairly valuable. Items such as the sheet and halyard winches, winch handles, stainless steel nuts and bolts, the shourds and stays are normally made of stainless steel, all of which good scrap. At times even the wood could be valuable. Teak is more than a bit expensive.

The hull is strickly chainsaw material, but DO wear protective clothing, ESPECIALLY eye protection (spent the better part of an evening at the emergency room after my safety glasses slipped and I got an eyeful of ground up fiberglass in my eye. ) So much for saving money installing my bulkheads.

[zuke]

I went through this this summer. The sailboat was a cookie cutter mass produced boat, the manufaturer stated the hull was 97% lead, 3% antimony. Boats made in small shops may be unknown mixed alloys from salvage. The boat was free, I found a buddy that wanted the boat for a play place for his kid. We had the boat dropped off at his place, the boatyard that gave it to use lent us some shores. We unbolted the keel from the inside then tightened the shores until the keel was hanging. At this point adhesive was holding it. We used chisels and sledges to separate it. Those adhesives are strong, it was a lot of work.

This is a video of my buddy chiseling on the keel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy_6nmxCGko

Next was cutting it into moveable chunks. 600-800 lbs seemed to be the ticket. Chainsaw, lots of work, lots of sharpening. Very tiring.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5oz9IJ_5O0

Hauling the chunks home was the easiest part, but still a lot of work. Used an engine hoist to load them on my truck.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF2zE6uLgCk

The more nerve wracking parts was lowering the boat to the ground once the keel was gone. You can only lower it so far before the shores bottom out. We ended up buying some railroad ties and cutting them up then stacking them like house movers do. Remove some, lower boat. Repeat. We sunk some 4x4 posts in the ground on each side to keep it from tipping. That was a stressful time!

The project took all summer whittling away at it here and there. The mast is aluminum which he is going to haul for scrap. A keel is a lot of work! However I will say that I'm still working my way through melting the sawdust!

http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/j407/mainejunker/a5b9044b.jpg

Leave the mast and hang the US flag from it

[High Lord Gomer]

How much did the entire keel weigh?