Hairline cracks in keel?

[cantabrian]

After working for a couple months to overhaul my new-to-me CP16, I was putting in the garbourd drain plug and saw what look like hairline cracks on the keel. The surface is smooth (that is, you can't really feel these cracks), but they look worrying. I'm putting the boat on a mooring this year, and so I'm especially worried about any potential leaks that might sink it! Some folks over on the facebook group said it looks like water was seeping out of these cracks, so I thought I'd come to the pros here to see what you thought. The area in the picture is the front of the keel, on the port side. I emailed the guy I bought it from, who did a bottom job before he sold it to me (including fairing, with two coats of epoxy barrier coat). He said he wonders if the cracks are just gel coat crazing.

Here are my options, it seems to me. I'd be grateful for your thoughts!

1) Just leave it alone, and check for water intrusion regularly. Maybe it's just superficial? I live near the mooring, so checking it's not a problem. 
2) Sand off the ablative, put some barrier coat over it, put ablative back on.
3) Sand off the ablative, put some fairing compound over it, sand it, then barrier coat, then ablative.

Also: I've also included a picture of the garbourd drain. I'm increasingly wondering if maybe it's ironically a source of water intrusion. I'm wondering if I should also sand the ablative off the seams around it, apply some epoxy putty (west + 407, perhaps?) and then paint it with ablative again.

I'm kind of at the end of my rope in terms of boat work this pre-season. So, I'd really love to go with the minimal amount of work for now, if a more substantial repair seems like maybe it can wait till next season. (BTW: I searched and found old posts related to this, but the site suggested I make a new thread, so . . . )

[In The Pocket]

What if you sand down a small area on one of the larger looking cracks.  Sand until you hopefully get to a crack-free gelcoat.  If no crack in the gelcoat on your spot check, then you're likely good.  re-epoxy the area or slather on some marine-tex and you're good to go until the next bottom paint job.

[wes]

I'm concerned about those cracks. Gelcoat crazing would not telegraph through a properly applied epoxy barrier coat (which by the way should be more than two coats to achieve the 10 mil specification; more like  5 coats). I think you've got cracks in the fiberglass laminate, probably because of an impact to the keel that the PO tried to hide with that bottom work. You should sand off the anti fouling and the (too thin) barrier coat and find out what's going on. I think you have fiberglass repair work in your future.

I don't have a drain in my keel, and doubtless there's some water in there. I don't lose sleep over it, but I live in a temperate climate (NC) where it doesn't get very cold. In northern climes I might worry more about keel water freezing, in which case the drain could be useful.

Wes

[MacGyver]

It could also be too thick of paint coatings, but I would be intrigued as well to see below all of it to know what it going on just to be sure. You might be able to do what I used to do when working on boats is scrape it with a scraper and see if the coating below has the same crack as well, which would be like Wes said about it radiating through to the last layers, meaning impact potential.

Mac