Ideas Needed for Re-sealing Pulpit and Fore Deck

[bobk]

On the way south this year we spent a few hours beating into 4'+ waves on the Chesapeake. We found water on the floor in the forward cabin and this led me to check the anchor chain and rope lockers. The bolts for the anchor chute and pulpit fastenings had water drips on them suggesting leaks. I cleaned the underside of the deck in the area and checked for moisture in the deck core and found elevated moisture readings aft of the three large holes in the picture below (which came from Walt P's boat when he tore off the pulpit and deck for re-coring).

Since the wet area sounds solid when hammered and only extends an inch back from the pulpit, it seems reasonable to pull all the bolts, drop the winch, and dry the cores, then over drill the holes and fill with epoxy and drill new holes through the epoxy filler. I don't want to remove the pulpit which becomes a big repair job.

Walt and I would both like to hear some alternate suggestions for this repair and remounting the chute and winch. By the way, the back side of the pulpit platform is a couple of layers of plywood.... which may also be wet, but there is no practical way to check it short of going through what Walt did.

Also, does anyone know what is behind the black plastic that covers the underside of the pulpit extension?

Bobk
Chateau de Mer
1981 48MY

[Vincentc]

When I removed my pulpit, I used a hole saw to drill a bunch of holes from the underside of the deck through the coring but leaving the fiberglass deck intact. The area was confined to the inside of the anchor locker and I was not too concerned with how everything looked.

The bad coring was rampant. I could not accurately determine the bad coring by tapping with a hammer. There was much more bad stuff than I thought.

Once I had identified all of the wet and mostly rotten balsa coring and dried everything out, I tacked a piece of plywood covered with visqueen to the underside of the deck. Using the plywood as a mold to keep the epoxy from leaking out, I filled the holes with epoxy and filler.

I don't know why you couldn't do much the same thing with the pulpit still in place.

Let me know if you want a more detailed explaination and some photos.

Regards,

[bobk]

If you didn't drill through the upper deck skin, you must have filled just via the original bolt holes. How thick was the epoxy, and did the exotherm get it smoking hot?

I think I understand your process, but a picture or two might be helpful.

Bobk

[dastahl]

BobK,
I did th same thing on Little Skooch. I removed with a trim router 2 foot squares from the underside in the Vee and locker area. Cleaned out the bad core and dried it out. Then with straight unthickened West System I made 2 foot sandwitch 3/4 inch thick of glass and balsa. Then I pushed it up with a tall scissors jack and plywood covered with a plastic trash bag. Let it cure over night. Then removed the jack and bag moved on to the next 2 foot patch. Anything bigger was too hard to handle by myself. I think if you had two people you could get much bigger patches which would help a great deal.

Very strong, very messy, did not cost much but terrible job over all. And guess what? I get to do it again with Big Skooch. I can't wait.

Skooch
New Bern NC

[Bill Allen]

When I replaced my pulpit I found some rot, not a ton of it. My pulpit doesn't seal tight around the deck so it can get water get under it. Since I really wasn't concerned about how it looked under the pulpit I just went ahead and cut holes big enough to remove the bad balsa. I srewed plywood under neath and put plastic inbetween the plywood and the underside of the deck. Dug more coring out so the void was bigger then the holes. Vacuumed everything lose out. Layed cleoth and carbon fiber in the hole extending under the remaining fiberglass using slow curing epoxy so it would'nt kick before I had all the cloth built up to the level of the top of the deck. I made sure all the holes had at least an extra inch of solid glass around any holes that would be drilled through the deck. Set the new pulpit on and redrilled the holes. Took it back up to confirm my locations were good. Caulked where it woud sit then bolted the pulpit back down using aluminum angles as washers. I didn't seal where the chain go's through the deck since water can get between my pulpit and deck and since it's now solid fiberglass figure it won't hurt anything and will allow the void to drain. Bill

[Genesis]

I did this repair on Gigabite and I was reasonably sure at the time I dismounted the pulpit that there was little core deterioration.

I was dead wrong. Wound up cutting it out from the bottom in the anchor locker, removing the destroyed core and replacing it with laid-in pieces of 3/4 marine ply and thickened epoxy around it, then re-glassed from the bottom. It was TANK tough when I was done and a hell of a mess of a job though.

You will not know what you have until you take it apart, unfortunately, and it's highly likely if its wet it's far more damaged than you think. If you just inject epoxy in there you're just shooting epoxy into the destroyed core area and the strength will be far from optimal.

[Triskele]

BobK,
I did th same thing on Little Skooch. I removed with a trim router 2 foot squares from the underside in the Vee and locker area. Cleaned out the bad core and dried it out. Then with straight unthickened West System I made 2 foot sandwitch 3/4 inch thick of glass and balsa. Then I pushed it up with a tall scissors jack and plywood covered with a plastic trash bag. Let it cure over night. Then removed the jack and bag moved on to the next 2 foot patch. Anything bigger was too hard to handle by myself. I think if you had two people you could get much bigger patches which would help a great deal.

Very strong, very messy, did not cost much but terrible job over all. And guess what? I get to do it again with Big Skooch. I can't wait.

Skooch
New Bern NC

How did you make the 3/4" glass and balsa "sandwich"? Did you glass over the balsa to create a core that would then be layed between the deck skins?