Ballast bolt failure

When we took off the keel, we found that two of the blots which hold on the ballast were seriously corroded. As was noted in my first post, one failed without warning during spring cleaning. When, last week, we forced the ballast away from the plank keel to remove it, a second one snapped. Today, Snediker and I spoke at length with Ed McClave, of McClave, Philbrick and Giblin. He was convinced that the two aftermost keel bolts corroded in the way they did because they weren’t silicon bronze, but were naval brass instead. Their color was slightly different from that of the other nine bolts. The two alloys are equivalent in strength, but the brass is more vulnerable to losing zinc when continuoously submerged in sea water.