Making the boat heavy 

Ballast - Lest

Pour un bateau lourd

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The Pepe Berrou is a heavy boat with a 40% lead to displacement ratio, that means a lot of ballast. We have been collecting lead for several years and still could take more, ideally we would reach 10 tons. In the mean time we want to concentrate on the integral ballast and will not rush about trim ballast, which could eventually be steel and has dedicated space planned ahead. On the plating page I have already described our first go at lead melting for this boat (similar to our lead melting experience for our previous boat). That first load was all piece meal bought from metal recyclers. We painfully melted our 4600lbs on a propane burner. 
But now lets talk real stuff...no more piece meal lead melting. We need big chunks of lead, enough of those pipes and tire weights. Sooo? were do we find big pieces of lead? Under boats: KEELS! We got a grip on two keels.

Our first purchase was "Karma". The 26 ft sailboat had been sitting open in a yard for years and was unfortunately a lost cause worth more for it's 1 ton keel than as a sailing vessel. I don't remember what kind of boat it was, ugly if you ask me.
I gutted the hull of anything left that could have some value, cut off the keel and we then crushed the hull to dispose of it.

For the sensitive boat lovers who would have issues with our boat destruction activities note that it was in unrecoverable condition. It was in such bad shape that the yard where it was laying was willing to pay to get rid of it and brought it to us for free. Absolutely no one wanted it. Dumps didn't want it because of the lead and recyclers didn't want it because of the rest of the boat. It had been left open to elements for a few years, there was a water line on the inside and oil everywhere. The hull was convex at the cradle pads and the deck scary to walk on. Even if it had been possible to fix it, economically it wasn't...it would of cost more in resin and labor than the value of the 26 ft hull. There was no engine, no mast, no rigging....no nothing but lead. For the cost of all the above I could buy an ok 26 footer.
The photos make it look good, but it wasn't. Lets be serious here....I love sailing...if I could of fixed it up to have a boat to play with while I build mine, I would of. Fiberglass boats can die. When it happens, you take everything salvageable on it, fold it up and bring it to the land fill.

The second keel came from a friend, Bernard. Bernard bought a hurricane boat from Florida to recover parts. By selling all the valuable parts of the boat he figured he would get the engine for free. We bought the keel from him....thanks Bernard, that was a helpful couple tons.

We than stared at our lead for a while, wondering, how, first, we were going to melt those chunks and then how we were going to place all that ballast in the boat. I am now happy to announce that we are done banging our heads on the walls over these problems. I spent many days making 24 "bins" shaped to be contained in 4 integral tanks that will be welded shut. It has been a lot of work but I expect the result to be very tidy.

To melt the keels, our bathroom renovation and Bud Mackintosh brought us the answer. In his book, Mackintosh has a drawing of some guys melting lead in a tub over a wood burning fire. We were very unsure but figured we should give it a try.This actually worked much better and faster than we expected. We started by getting a puddle going with some smaller chunks and where stunned how quick the lead started to melt. Our neighbor, Yann, came with his big green tractor to place the 1 ton keel down in the tub. Hum... didn't fit....Mark got to try the chainsaw in the lead keel. Yes, Mark can now fully acclaim his...arrg... male chainsaw talents :)
We still did get a few troubles with top of the keel being to long for the tub but managed to melt the keel in two hours, Wow. The pouring of the lead in the molds took a little bit more time and a lot of muscle. No need to say we ended the day exhausted.

Note the pictures of the fiberglass top and the keel bolts.

Some may wonder why we end up having ballast laid in the bottom of the hull as we do, why isn't all contained in the keel as most sail boats our days. Quick awnser is: that's the way it is! A little better said: The keel of the boat is not really a keel, more of a back bone. The fishing Tuna dundees would ballast by filling the bottom of the boat with rocks (and eventually with fish). We thought we could do a little better than rocks but still had to load the bottom of the boat. Unlike the old wooden boats we could use the box section of the back bone to carry some ballast. Compared to old boats, that has the obvious advantage of lowering our center of gravity, but we didn't have enough well positionned (center of boyancy) volume to carry all the necessary ballast to reach our diplacement. It was necessary to carry some ballast in the belly of the beast. So be it. It only has made lead containement a bit more work than the common modern steel vessel.

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