Diving in…..to the deck

[Joe Hewes]

Well, it’s time to address the deck coring on Two Fish III, our ‘79 58YF.
Some history here to help others!
Since I purchased the boat almost 4 years ago I have occasionally had a leak in both the port side guest & master head. The leak manifested itself in heavy rain & sea conditions while underway.
We reseated & rebedded stanchions, cleats & all deck hardware. We rebedded our windows, replaced glass & installed new gaskets. Still we had the occasional leak in the heads.
We also had a mystery “mungy” odor, that would come & go - sort of like wet towels left in a clothes hamper. I could never figure out what caused it. Our bilges are dry & spotless. Our sanitation hoses are not old & we have fresh water heads. New AC units & no AC ducts.
Last fall during a period of extremely heavy rain over a number of days I discovered water dripping in the heads. I I took a flashlight & looked for a source as best I could down the starboard side from aft working forward on the starboard side. The last thing I checked was the anchor locker. I felt moisture on the forward part of the windlass & traced it to water on the windlass bolts & bow pulpit bolts.
After the rain past, I removed the guest head vanity & found water dripping from the skin coat of the deck in an area where the laminate was open. I placed a quart bucket under the leak - in a couple of days I had a quart of putrid brown water.
Please know that prior to purchasing the boat I had two surveys done by two different surveyors. In addition, after the purchase I had the windlass removed & sent off to Galley Maid for a complete rebuild. There was no evidence of rot on the pulpit. I didn’t look closely at the underside of the anchor locker.
I decided to pull the windlass & inspect the anchor locker overhead after reading many posts on this site. Fortunately, the Windlass was quite easy to remove as it had been removed a few years prior.
Once it was removed, what I found was a complete degradation of the balsa coring where the windlass mounts.
I then borrowed a GOOD OLD SCHOOL moisture meter & checked my entire deck, deck house, flybridge - you name it. I found I had high moisture & wet readings from the anchor locker down the starboard side all the way to the wing door.
I had a surveyor friend come out a verify my findings. His high tech moisture meter read elevated but not extreme. He sounded the deck & found a spot about 2’ square that sounded bad starboard side forward of the deck house.
I made the decision to shrink wrap the entire boat & work in a controlled environment to do the job right.
Once we started opening things up you can guess what we found. No core, mud core, mush core, wet core & damp core.
We’re in process now. We will be using Coosa & Divinycell for our new coring. We’re using West System Epoxy along with 1708 & Mat. I’m leaning toward vacuum bagging.
I’ve decided to attack the anchor locker from below. I built a temporary platform to lie on to be more comfortable to cut out the old skin coat & coring, grinding, laminating etc……it’s no fun - but it’s not horrible either. It’s better I believe than pulling off the pulpit.
The job is progressing bit by bit. I’ve included pictures so you can see what we’re up to - I’ll post pics as we move along. Standby.

 

[Boatsb]

As I sit here Thursday night around 7:30 a thought comes to mind.

Most mat is not for use with epoxy. If your not sure its epoxy compatible dont use it.

 

[Eddieclemons]

You are the Man for tackling this!! This is hard to start and even harder to stay the coarse and finish. It will be great when you finish.

 

[Bob Bradley]

I've done it a couple times on my 79 43C and once on my 86 45C. Odds are, if you have a boat of that vintage, you either have done it or need to. It's a lot of work, but not overwhelming.

 

[dar636]

Wow, that's crazy how far water was traveling aft. I am impressed you stuck with and found the source, keep the updates coming.

 

[brettportzer]

So is your pulpit glassed in? Most of them, including mine, are not.

 

[Joe Hewes]

My pulpit is glassed in & has two all thread that are laminated in to the pulpit. It’s super solid.
Attached are photos from today’s festivities. You can clearly see the dark color of the wet coring & light color of the dry.

The coring is 1” thick. The bottom skin is a layer of mat & woven roven. Im going to add a layer (maybe 2) of 1708 & mat to the bottom skin (it is paper thin) & a layer of 1708 to the deck skin. I think I’m going to use 3/4” scored Coosa to allow for the additional thickness of the skin & thickened epoxy. I’ll do a small test section to see where we end up - I’ll get it dialed in & roll with it. Trying to be dead nuts on so we don’t have a ton of fairing.

Pealing the deck up off good cording takes patience,a lot of wedges, flat bars, & time. A fine tool is key!
It’s amazing how stout the deck is where it’s dry! 47 years old & absolutely rock solid & a PITA to get the deck free.

Job is going well (shouldn’t have written that…) definitely glad it’s cold/cool weather for all the grinding especially in the anchor locker. Temps are in the 50s & will warm up into the 70s next week. We’ll be ready to start laying up then. No way I would attempt this project in hot weather!
Having the boat completely covered is Soooooo nice. Well worth the cost to have the wrap put on.
We’ll wind up the grinding & prepping the anchor locker tomorrow & move on to templating, test fitting & getting all the glass cut, labeled & ready to lay up.

Prepping & cleaning tools, charging batteries, setting up the workspace & cleaning each day & keeping sh_t tight is paramount!

Lastly, this is NOT hard - it just takes time ( I’m retired) and the willingness to do it ( oh, & some money)……I have been thinking about this project for a long time & was on the verge of falling victim to paralysis by analysis - glad I’m doing it! You can’t screw up too bad, it’s fiberglass & screw ups are easy enough to fix!
Stay tuned……

 

[Sadey]

Wow what a job! Takes some big stones to jump in on this project but these boat deserve the effort.

 

[Briankinley2004]

As I sit here Thursday night around 7:30 a thought comes to mind.

Most mat is not for use with epoxy. If your not sure its epoxy compatible dont use it.

1708 is compatible with epoxy as the chop strand is woven in. The regular CSM uses a chemical binder and is not compatible.

 

[Boatsb]

When in doubt toss it out. .ame sure the matt does not have the polyester type binder. It requires styrenne to dissolve the binder and epoxy will not.work properly.

 

[brettportzer]

I think West System says that using CSM with epoxy is fine, except that the binder doesn’t break down like it does from the styrene in poly and can’t conform to shapes very well.

 

[whoover]

West system and csm wiĺ not work, I found out the hard and expensive way. 1708 will work as there is no binder holding the mat as stated above. I recored my deck under my pulpit from water intrusion around the windlass. I tackled it from underneath using 1708 and epoxy. I watched as many boatworks today youtube videos as I could before starting. It was messy but I had a rock solid deck when I was done. There is a thread here from a member with good pictures and information which was also very helpful.

Walt Hoover

 

[The Hatt]

@Joe Hewes question for you - obviously you noticed the leak in the head area, but with the wet wood in the deck, did you noticed any softness or was it just diagnosed with a hammer and the moisture meters?

With boats of this vintage, it’s hard to imagine that some of the deck is not compromised, but if there are no soft spots, is it worth the trouble / expense of trying to recore somewhat preemptively?

Congrats on tackling the job!

 

[Joe Hewes]

As we cut into the deck we found that the glass was over 1/4” thick. In addition most of the worst rot was 2’ or less from the gunnel rise. Because the radius of the gunnel rise to the deck offers strength & the fact that the deck trail is narrow & well supported aft at the deck house we saw no deck flex.

Could I have left the rot & wet wood aft of the windlass mount? Yes, most definitely. However, there’s no way I could do that in good conscience. I wouldn’t be able to sleep! Plus, working from above is not as difficult a process so once we started I figured let’s just do it right. So glad we did!

Thanks all for great feedback about the mat! Will only use 1708.

 

[dar636]

Thanks, good info and pics. Now I can see how thick the top glass is.
So water traveled all the way from the windlass deckplate to your master head? And this is the only area needing reconstruction?
I can vouch for the pain of working in the chain locker. I spent too much time in the there last winter.

 

[Joe Hewes]

The water definitely traveled down the starboard side out approximately 30” from the gunnel & down the starboard deck trail narrowing outboard as it traveled. How narrow is yet to be determined! As I’ve learned, moisture meters & sounding may put you in the ball park but to be certain you’ve got to make a hole!

In order to work efficiently & minimize the risk of distortion I’m going to layup the areas that are currently opened up & once they are glassed & faired move aft to the deck trail adjacent to the galley windows starboard side.

I anticipate 2-3 weeks until we’re ready to move on to the next section. The anchor locker, pulpit /windlass mounting reinforcement, lay up, paint etc…. will take some time. I’ll get pics posted as we progress so you can see the water intrusion path.

Thanks for your interest!

 

[Joe Hewes]

I’ve included pictures of inside the anchor locker.

The temporary shelf was a must. It definitely made things more accessible & the job easier.

Removing the old coring was relatively straightforward forward. Grinding absolutely sucked. You can see the results of three days of grinding.

The rot spanned the forward bulkhead on the starboard side. You can see where we cut out the tabbing. We’ll fill in the space between the deck & bulkhead with fitted wedges of & epoxy thickened with 406 colloidal. We’ll then fillet that with 403 colloidal. Once cured we’ll tab it all in with counter layed heavy biaxial.

I have included pics of the pulpit access hole & inside the pulpit. It looked really good & dry. I was able to install a SS Barrel bolt & all thread from McMaster Carr to repaired the broken Pulpit all thread on the port side.

Not super exciting pics but it’s worth seeing how we’re progressing….hope it helps someone!

More to come…..

 

[brettportzer]

Do you have a pic that shows how the windlass came through the pulpit? If that makes sense? On my boat, and the pictures I have seen previously, there was like a 2" space between the pulpit and the deck, and that was stacked with plywood. The windlass had big bolts that went all the way through into the anchor locker, but I guess it was treated as one piece, but just 6" thick or whatever.
Your pic doesn't seem like it had that, just curious how it was bolted up, etc...

 

[Joe Hewes]

I do not have pics but will take some & post once it’s time to reinstall the windlass. I’ll get some measurements too. Standby it’ll be a few weeks.

 

[Briankinley2004]

Brings back some dusty memories of when I did mine. A nasty job but wasn't too bad considering I didn't have to remove the pulpit or worry about water getting in from above while I worked