Anchor Pulpit rebuilds/core trouble foreward (and fixes)

[doc g]

bec53

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]

bec53

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]

chain hooks

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

 

[doc g]

snubber

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]

Yep.

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]

Finally off

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]

Ok, here's what I've got.

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]

PULPIT

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]

No

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]

Well.....

.. 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.

 

[BEC53]

Factory?

I'm still skeptical of an original install with screws through the deck. Maybe it had a windlass from the factory, but someone else worked on it later, installed the plywood in between, and replaced parts of the windlass with another brand.

I'm almost certain mine has not been off before and it is, as I said before, hollow between the deck and the top of the pulpit. There are no signs of any removal of blocking in there--no holes, caulk, glue, etc.--just original painted deck. It does look like a solid piece from the back of the coping rail forward though. This is vintage 1985, stored in a covered boathouse since new, but, like you, I can't be 100% sure of what has or has not been done either.

Anyway...good luck on your project. It sounds like you'll never have to touch it again.

 

[mike]

Clear penetrating epoxy

www.smithandcompany.org/ best epoxy around for fixing your type of problem. have used it for 25 years, it will displace the water in the core material.
mike

 

[Genesis]

Yep

That's exactly what I am going to use; I'm already aware of it.

I've done some repairs with regular West System epoxy, both "neat" and thinned with acetone, and neither penetrated all that well.

This stuff does.

 

[Genesis]

Not this one....

The pulpit itself is hollow in the front. It is two-piece, and intended to never come apart - it is glassed together, but definitely two pieces forward of the coping rail.

Behind it its hollow underneath, and was clearly not originally designed as filled. Its also clear that someone jacked with it, as the epoxy that was used was wicked in - not built up and cleanly done. It is not well-bonded to the pulpit, for example, and if a yard had pulled it and repaired this they would have roughed up the inside of the pulpit and insured a good bond - they did not. Its pretty clear that the epoxy stuff was done by someone - probably a previous owner - to try to stop brown sludge from "leaking" out from under the pulpit. The sludge, of course, was the plywood rotting away...

I guess its possible that the factory didn't put the pulpit on, but those screws into the deck are awfully suspicious, and they're phosphor-bronze too - not stainless - which is another Hattie factory thing. Never mind that the exact same pulpit is present on a half-dozen other Hatts of the same general era (spanning many years) that I've seen around here. There are two Hatts spanning more than 10 years in my marina with the SAME pulpit! What are the odds of a bunch of random yards getting the exact same piece, and fitting it the exact same way? I'm not sure I buy that one...

Anyway, whoever did it originally, its gonna get fixed right this time.... It just annoys me to no end that this sort of stupidity is present on a boat like this - no matter who the responsible party was.....

Ah well, in the grand scheme of things its not a major issue - just a serious hassle.

 

[ttom02]

Nylon Snubber

Another idea for heavy weather anchoring with an all chain rode that I use, is to buy two nylon lifting slings - mine are 15' long each. The type that are used to lift heavy items with a crane etc. Join the two together with the chain hook, fasten to anchor chain and connect each end over your spring cleats on the bow. Then just let out on your chain rode until it has slack in it. Now all of the load is spread into two points, and you tend to sail much less. This drops your scope down below the bow considerably also. The nylon slings have just enought stretch to work well.
Tom

 

[Bob Bradley]

Re: Nylon Snubber

Karl,
I have trouble believing that Hatt would have simply screwed non-marine plywood into the deck. It's just not their style of work. I'd be more likely to suspect that the same guy who did the sloppy epoxy job may have had a hand in it. Remember that anyone can buy a kit full of original screws, and someone doing a job that slopily would probably just use what he had at hand, rather than go out and buy some ss wood screws.

Also, whoever installed my windlass didn't use any caulk either. The main "Ideal" embossed plate was set in place completely dry. Neither was there any caulk on the windlass mounting bolts. Dry as a bone. Neither was there any caulk between the underside of the deck and the round thick plywood pad that separates the windlass from the underdeck. It popped off clean as a whistle. This is precisely why I have a ball of rust for a windlass right now.

With respect to the hollows in the pulpit, I don't think that they present much of a structural problem. The lion's share of the stress is absorbed by the heavy roller mount, which is bolted thru the solid portion, and back plated well.

I do have one concern with your approach of just replacing the deck core material and reinstalling the pulpit and roller mount. I would be somewhat worried about the structual integrity of the deck at the point where your new material meets the old material.

I will be doing a similar repair, and I plan to add a substantial backing plate to the underdeck, inside the rode locker, extending beyond the point where my new materal meets Hatteras' original material. This will probably be either a piece of white oak, soaked in cpes or a large piece of aluminum stock the same thickness as the existing backing plates.

In any event, I'm attacking my pulpit this Sunday, so I'll let you know if I find a stack of crappy plywood screwed beneath mine.

 

[Genesis]

I think you misunderstand my intention....

... with the deck repair process.

I'm going to cut off the top skin layer and remove the sodden core to the limit of my ability with wood chisels. I'll get all the wasted stuff out of there, however far back that goes.

THEN I will soak the open edges with CPES until it will not take any more, and follow THAT with epoxy resin until THAT will not absorb further.

I'm then going to fit new core (this time being marine plywood), bedding it against the old core material using microballoon-thickened epoxy, to insure there are no voids between the two. The new core will likewise be soaked in CPES and then epoxy, again, until saturated.

The top deck piece will then be reattached, again, all epoxy, V-grooved, and glassed into the existing deck with a couple layers of fiberglass.

The other option would be to laminate up solid fiberglass to fill the deck gap, which is roughly 3/4". That would make that section of deck tank-like, but approacing it that way would be radical overkill. It does, however, have a certain appeal, as a friend of mine has a roll of the very coarse roving very similar to what Hatt used for their hulls originally..... all I'd have to do is buy the mat for the intervening layers, and of course all the epoxy...

Once that's complete the deck where the repair has been made will be massively stronger than it was originally - by several orders of magnitude. That area will also be heavier, but that's ok - the entire area involved is about 2' on a side, which isn't all that much.

The bottom of the pulpit will have new shoring installed, again, CPES-soaked and then resin-infused. Once installed and the pulpit has been cleaned up and refinished I will dry-fit the pulpit to the boat, filling any gaps with paste-consistency epoxy so that the stress is taken up evenly by the entire deck are on which it rests. It'll then be pulled off and the paste allowed to cure up.

I will then fair in a backing system under the deck using the same methodology - infuse it with CPES, then soak it in resin to insure that it cannot get water in it, dry-fit it with a layer of putty-consistency epoxy to insure that there are no gaps and the load is taken evenly across the entire contact surface, and then put it all back together.

The original design for the stress is to take most of the load at the caprail (with the pulpit sitting on it) and roller mounting bolts, with the rest taken on the windless bolts. Its a three-point load-distribution system as originally designed. The original backing plates are aluminum and for the roller bolts not very large - IMHO, not adequate. I intend to do better in that regard.

I'm convinced the wood I dug out is original going back to the delivery of the boat, but whether Hatt or the dealer did it is obviously impossible to determine. In addition there is the obvious addition of the windless by someone other than whoever installed the roller and pulpit.

However, the basic design is definitely bogus and the root cause of the problem.

An interesting note is that upon digging out all the rotted wood I found an active termite colony (!) in the pulpit plywood. There is no evidence of it extending into the boat itself, but the wood was being consumed from the top down inside the pulpit by the little buggers. So in addition to being rotted, it was being eaten! Also of interest is that the original build on the pulpit included two thin shoring members of plywood laminate on the inside of each side rail, those WERE infused with epoxy, and while the infusion was not complete they're not in bad shape for the most part. The center section of plywood which had zero resin applied to it, other than being epoxied to the underside of the fiberglass pulpit was destroyed and I have now cleaned off the inside of the pulpit down to bare fiberglass.

Also of interest is that whoever originally fit the pulpit did the dry fit part using filled epoxy (e.g. microballoons, etc) and that remains stable and rock hard. If the previous owner had not run epoxy up inside there in an attempt to stem the leaks, it would have come off easily without deck damage. As he did, it was "fun" to get apart. However, without that fairing compound it would have likely been nearly impossible to get the pulpit off at all as there would have been nothing solid against which to pry while extricating it.

 

[jim rosenthal]

Not everything Hatteras did...

...was perfect. For example, the bronze screws that held my bow rail stanchions down, screwed into that steel plate which is laminated into the toe rail, which all electrolyzed below the level of the deck and had to be drilled out. Now SS screws, which we withdrew a few years ago and replaced. They were holding up well, however. But not a good idea to start with.
Over the years I've seen a number of "inaccessibles" and "not put together rights" and "not water-sealeds" on Hatteras yachts, as well as the famous blistering. I think Hatteras yachts are build much better than average, but no company is immune to screwups, and no one is immune to the phenomenon that as the distance between the designer and the assembly line increases, frequently the number of "get it out the door"s increases as well.
After twelve years there are still parts of Blue Note I can't get to underneath the cabin sole. God only knows what's down there- I sure don't. And hope I don't have to find out anytime soon.
Karl at least you found this out now rather than by having the whole assembly rip out of the deck at the worst moment. Incidentally, when you're done repowering your boat and everything's to your liking, I'm buying it from you.:lol

 

[Genesis]

LOL!

Yeah, I hear 'ya on the 'worst possible time.'

I shudder at the thought of what could have happened. If we had taken Hurricane Ivan on the hook, and any load had been taken up on that roller, its very likely that we would have ripped the entire front of the deck off. Seeing as one of the ideas I had for that storm was to do a bahamian moor (I've got the big storm anchors for it), I suspect we would have gotten really badly hosed.

Likewise, we've had to drop a hook when a storm has overtaken us before, and wait it out below. Hasn't happened often, but it would have only taken one really good 'whack' to rip the deck apart... That would have been one hell of a mess.

Anyway, it'll be tank-like when I'm done. I'm actually fairly seriously considering doing the full laminate deal rather than replacing the core. It would take some time, since you can really only lay two layers of glass at a time without running into the risk of a cooked cure, but on the other hand it would be damn unique and water would never get in there again.

I'm also considering repainting the foredeck when this is all done just for cosmetics. I dunno.... that's not all that big of a project, really, if I don't do the two-part stuff.

I dunno.... I'll get the top layer of the laminate off, dig it out, and then make my decision from there. I'm leaning towards using plywood for the replacement core simply because infused with resin its concrete-like in strength, I've done it before, and I've got some examples that have been left out in the weather for 5+ years that look like they were put together yesterday morning.

 

[Bob Bradley]

Re: LOL!

I think I understand most of it now. As I see it, you are not removing any material were the roller base is mounted (at least I hope not). So, you are removing only the area immediately around the hawse holes.

I’m still not certain whether you are removing material directly under the windlass, but I suspect that you are, and that is the cause of my concern.

My concern is that you are creating a seamed “plug” of surface fiberglass decking that is only tabbed into place by the new glass you are adding at the “V”. If the seam where you reattach the deck piece after you repair the core indeed proves to be a weak point, then it would appear to me that the main structure for mounting point of the windlass would be the substantially thinner underdeck fiberglass along with the backing plates.

I guess I envision a weakened area at the outline of the deck piece you are removing in order to repair the core. That deck top will be about 5/16” thick, and that provides much of the strength. The underdeck glass layer is substantially thinner – 1/8” or less – basically one layer of heavy cloth. I’d hate to see the outline of the repair crack under stress.

Unfortunately, you may also find that the decay has traveled further than you think, as I sadly discovered while rebedding my rodholders last spring. If you want, I can send you photos of the gunwale replacement job I did as a result of that problem. They might give you an idea of the kind of mess that may be in there.

In any event, if you have the time, take some photos of the project, as they will be a great education to the rest of us.
Bob