AUSTIN—The keel that broke off the Cynthia Woods sailboat moments before capsizing this month had been repaired in March 2007 after the vessel ran aground and suffered more than $1,800 in damage, records show.

The sailboat, which capsized June 6 in an accident that killed one crew member and stranded five others for 26 hours in the Gulf of Mexico, was also damaged in 2006 in another accidental grounding.

The repair history of the 38-foot sailboat was obtained by the Austin American-Statesman under open record laws for a story published Saturday. After last year’s grounding, damage to the keel and hull required $1,862 in repairs.

But the official in charge of investigating the capsizing warned against reading too much into the earlier incidents.

“Vessels run aground, and vessels get repairs,” said Jay Kimbrough, the Texas A&M University System’s deputy chancellor and general counsel. “Just because it ran aground does not give me an ’a-ha’ moment.”

Kimbrough added, “That’s why cars have bumpers. The question is to what extent was it damaged, how was it repaired and was it fully repaired.”

The keel, a finlike piece extending about 5 feet from the bottom of the hull, is encased in fiberglass, contains lead and weighs about 5,000 pounds.

The Texas A&M University-Galveston sailboat first ran aground in July 2006, records show. The only known damage was the loss of a cover for a navigation light on the bow.

A recovery crew found the keel from the Cynthia Woods last week, more than 30 miles offshore. Investigators hope it will help them determine why the sailboat sank during a regatta from Galveston to Veracruz, Mexico.

One of the six crew members died. The rest were stranded at sea for more than a day before their rescue. Officials think the keel came off shortly after the race began.