Anchor Pulpit rebuilds/core trouble foreward (and fixes)

[doc g]

The hawse pipe on mine is mounted @ 270 degrees ( 0 degrees being midline of the boat forward) about 8 -10 inches from where the chain trails off the windlass. The chain stopper is to stop the chain only. When anchored you use a nylon snubber with a chain hook and cleat it off on the bow cleats to take the stress off the deck hardware, ie the windlass . I also run a piece of nylon with a snap hook from the anchor shackle to a bow cleat to hold it in the stowed position, just to be sure. There was good article in one of the boating mags recently about this; poss. Power and Motoryacht?

[captbuddy]

Where do we get the Nylon snubber with chain hook. All I have been using is just the chain stopper on my 42' LRC. It has the fip down deal that stops the chain. I like the idea of the chain hook attached to the cleat.
Thanks,
captbuddy

[ronbecky]

They have them at Home Depot. That's where I got mine.

[doc g]

I made mine with a 3/4 inch nylon dockline. Splice a galvinized or ss thimble in one end then use an anchor shackle to put the chain hook on the thimble. Simply cleat off the other end. This line will take a beating with all the chafe at the anchor roller assy , you could chafe guard it or just replace when necessary. The best way is to use two in heavy weather , so you can cleat off to both bow cleats and the stress is distributed evenly. Let out enough chain so that the boat is riding solely on the line(s) . Without a snubber that slack comes out of the chain all at once and can wreak some serious havoc on things . If it doesn't dislodge the hook it will dislodge some other stuff like the windlass, hawse pipe,chain stopper,bow pulpit etc.

[Genesis]

In heavy weather, by the way, a very short piece of line is not enough.

If an all-chain rode comes taut the resulting stress will rip whatever is next-weakest out.

All-chain has some desireable qualities, but its dangerous in the snot.

[Bob Bradley]

Karl,
I finally got the offending windlass off the boat yesterday. The steel under-deck plate is wasted. Rusted to virtually nothing. It appears that I'm going to have to have it cut off, and have a new one fabricated and welded back on. If I had any sense, I'd just replace the unit, but it does work, and they aren't cheap.

I'll be removing the pulpit next Sunday, to repair it and whatever needs to be repaired in the area of the deck around the hawse holes as well. Isn't boating fun?

[Genesis]

My pulpit is off. Got it off today.

I'm pissed off now, at Hatteras, the yard that installed the Windlass (probably NOT Hatteras, as I'll explain here in a minute) and whichever of the rat bastard previous owners of the boat who tried to band-aid the problem.

First, Hatteras.

The pulpit has the layers of plywood between the underside of it and the deck. Hatteras built up the plywood ON THE DECK, used REGULAR plywood, DID NOT seal it, and then, to top it all off, DROVE FREAKING SCREWS THROUGH THE STACK INTO THE CORE OF THE DECK WITHOUT SEALING THAT EITHER!

How do I KNOW Hatt did this? Because the screws are stll there, and they are Hatteras' SIGNATURE square-drive screws.

Hatt did, however, caulk liberally around the anchor roller assembly bolts - no water intruded through there. However, even if nobody had screwed up later, the core STILL would have eventually failed and so would have the wood, since they drilled the holes in the deck and into the core. Thanks guys.

The yard that installed the windless sealed NOTHING. Not the backing piece of plywood, not the deck penetrations, nothing. NO caulk was in evidence on those bolts. They hastened the damage.

Then, some bright bulb in the past decided to INJECT epoxy into the gap between the pulpit and deck, rather than pull it off and fix it when it started to rot out under there. THAT bonded the assembly partially to the deck, which made getting it out a LOT of fun. Fortunately, they didn't take it off and scuff-sand the deck FIRST, or I would have NEVER gotten it apart. The skin-out mat came off from the deck along with the pulpit in some places, but that's no big deal, since the repair will all be under the pulpit when I'm done, and its nothing that some cloth and epoxy won't fix.

The wood under the pulpit is wasted.

The windless is not in bad shape. I will be able to clean it up and be ok there. The steel is not in great shape, but not condemned either - so I'm all right in that regard. The gears and motor appear to be fine - so that's just some cleanup with a wire wheel, some cold galvanizing to prevent future corrosion, and a new topcoat of paint.

The core right under the pulpit is wasted.

The top of the deck under the pulit is coming off in the next couple of days, I will dig out the bad core, soak the entire mess in penetrating epoxy beyond what I can cut out, cut a new piece of marine ply and soak IT in epoxy, scuff sand the inside of the inner laminate so I get a good bond, lay it in there to replace the core, set it with epoxy filled with microballoons, and then put the cap back on, grind a nice "V" and lay a couple of layers of fiberglass cloth in the joint, then fair it all in.

The pulpit is going to get all the crap under it stripped, sanded down, the edges fixed up with marine-tex (since I dug it up getting it apart), new shoring installed, soaked in epoxy, the entire thing dry-fit with filled epoxy (with wax paper between deck and pulpit so it doesn't adhere), then pulled apart, a bead of 5200 run around the outside edge, and set back. Bolt-holes re-drilled, bolts re-inserted, new backing plates installed (with them faired in using MarineTex) snugged up and we're done.

That thing will NEVER leak water into the core again, nor will it ever deteriorate underneath.

This is how it should have been done the FIRST time.

Beware if you own a Hattie with a bolted-on pulpit, as it appears that the root cause of this nonsense was improper installation of that pulpit at the factory.

If they did it to my boat they probably did it to yours, and if you don't take care of it you can bet it will eventually destroy the deck core entirely. That will be an amazingly expensive repair, if its even economically feasable on your boat. Don't fall victim to this one - if you haven't pulled the pulpit yet, consider doing it NOW and taking care of it before you get a nasty surprise!

[BEC53]

Karl,

After I removed my windlass, I checked the deck for spongy spots--all looks good. My deck appears to be foam cored and when I look through the hole that the windlass came out of, there is a big empty space between the pulpit and deck. Maybe someone had your pulpit off before and added the plywood then, because mine is hollow. I know many old Hatteras dealers used square drive screws over the years.

Anyway, I am at the point that I'm ready to re-install the rebuilt windlass and I think I should be okay. I figure that even if the pulpit sits on some untreated, unsoaked plywood that I cannot see, it should be alright as long as it is sealed in good with 5200 around all the edges, bolt holes, etc. which it appears to be right now. Does this sound reasonable?

[Genesis]

Water WILL get in there.

Consider this - if you take water up over the bow, especially if you ever take GREEN water there (and some day you WILL!), it will be forced into the gaps between the pulpit and rail.

I don't care how well you 5200 it, if there is even one millimeter of gap anywhere its going to get wet in there.

And once it does, since it can't drain, it will rot the underlayment.

A gap or soft underlayment is very bad. Someone probably removed the plywood backing on your boat. Its really, really important that the pulpit to deck connection be solid, because the load there is extreme, and if you get flexure there you will break free any seal you can form through the deck and core.

The result will be water intrusion, and if that area is perpetually wet (and it will be) you're right back to having trouble again.

BTW, foam core is no better than balsa and in many ways is worse. While balsa can rot and foam can't, that's not the end of it. Water does not compress. If it gets in there, as the deck skins move the water acts like a little prybar and forces apart the bond between skin and core. Then when it relaxes it sucks in more water (negative pressure), and the process repeats until the entire thing disbonds.

The nice thing with balsa (or plywood, which I don't think Hatt used anywhere) is that balsa will soak up epoxy. So for MINOR water intrusion you can drill holes to dry it out, suck the moisture out (shop vac, etc) so it dries, then inject thinned epoxy. It will soak through the balsa and harden rock-hard, effectively fixing it in place without having to rip it all apart.

Foam does not absorb epoxy. So if you DO get a disbonded core from the outside layers, you have to rip that entire part of the deck out to fix it. This is a major bitch.

For major core trouble on balsa you have to do that anyway, but a lot of minor problems, if caught quickly enough, can be fixed with very hassle or trouble.

You cannot tell if you've got core trouble accurately until the pulpit is off, unless its quite bad. If not, then count your blessings now, seal ALL penetrations with epoxy, and make damn sure you don't make any new ones or that you can't break open any of the ones you just sealed.

If you've got your pulpit off I'd build it up as I describe underneath so you have a solid surface from the deck all the way up to the top of the pulpit. Encapsulate the entire thing in epoxy so it can't get wet, and you'll never have trouble with it or the core.

This job is enough of a bitch that I really don't want to have to do it twice.

[Genesis]

.. I don't think the dealer did the original sin. I think Hatt did.

Here's why - the windlass was DEFINITELY installed wrong.

The PULPIT and anchor roller appears to have been factory. With the single exception of the screws into the deck it was done right, or at least close enough to right that it wasn't where trouble began. But the screws were still wrong.

There's no evidence that the pulpit has ever been removed. My deck has been repainted, and the original finish is obviously underneath.

Hatt confirmed for me (when I bought the boat) that commissioning was done at one of their dealers, as their commissioning files were empty. So was detail to know what OEM gear was on the boat when it left. It appears that the pulpit and roller were factory installed from both the rubrail and deck rail assemblies, but the windless was prewired only. It appears that a dealer added the windless. The date codes on the windless and such all match with this scenario; its pretty clear that the windless install was NOT done by Hatt. It also matches with the difference in procedures that are obvious from what was done.

Obviously 20 years down the road there's no way to know exactly what transpired, sans records which are not available. However, what's clear is that the pulpit and windless were installed by different people and at different times. It would make no sense for a dealer to install a pulpit without a windless, all things considered - but it does make sense to order a boat with a pulpit and a prewire for a windless, then have the dealer install that piece, either for convenience (e.g. you don't want one installed now, but the second owner does, etc) or because you just want something a bit different than the factory option.

Regardless, this is something that those who own these boats need to pay close attention to, because if I had not caught this when I did I might have ended up with an extremely severe and expensive problem, instead of a pain in the butt. Its sneaky, in that sounding of the deck right at the edge of the pulpit comes back clean, but underneath once the pulpit is off its mush.

As such a surveyor would probably miss this!

If your windless is damaged from water intrusion down the steel part I'd pull the pulpit off and check, because if you have water there, you have the possibility of water in the core. If you didn't have some numbnuts epoxy it to the deck its not hard to get the pulpit off, and if you DO have a problem fixing it now is the wise course of action.