De Westerly GK29 heeft soms problemen met het vlak rond de kiel, daar zijn bij de bouw nogal lichte stringers gebruikt.
One of the known issues with GK29s is that the stringers above the keel needed strengthening.
The bilge stringers and the center keelson holding the keel on its right place and giving the boat sagging and hogging stiffness have all bin broken due to I guess dry-docking but also be course the builders used little small planks to create the center keelson’s and bilge stringers, the only strengthening it has is a layer of glass 7,0 ounces or 200 grams with polyester which is absolutely not !!!!!!! strong enough .
Eén van de eigenaars heeft dit als volgt hersteld:
I thickened and strengthened all the stringers in the main saloon (from mast step to engine bay) by bonding in 25mm Iroko either side of the stringers running port starboard and on one side of those running fore and aft. The whole lot was then covered in 3 layers of biaxial cloth, and two of heavy twil in the following sequence (biax 45 degrees, twil fore aft (0 degrees), biax 225 degrees, twil 90 degrees, biax 45). Particular care needs to be taken around the joints. I used minimal cutting and shaped around these areas to make sure all cloth joins overlapped. At the edges of this strengthened floor plan I feathered the edges (each layer was shorter than the first) to prevent a hard edge that could lead to cracking. I used Blue Gee epoxy with a slow hardener to give me plenty of time to roller out any trapped air. I did try and use a vacuum bagging technique to consolidate the composite, but was unable to get a good enough seal and hence reverted to hand rollering.
Verder is er bij de GK29 in ieder geval één geval van zeer ernstige osmose en delaminatie bekend.
Meer info over de stringers op het
owners forum.