Forward deck rot.

[ESCAPE PLAN]

60 square feet of forward deck needs recoring from the windlass all the way to my escape hatch.Would it be better to do a half at a time or all at once?( im doing it all by myself)

 

[bostonhatteras]

Personally I would do it all at once. Do you have a plan either way you've contemplated it? From the outside is definitely the preferred method. Sound out the rot area carefully and cut away the top skin with a 7" grinder making a natural scarf joint which mimics the radius of the 7" wheel which youll then use the produced scarf for the glass tape and epoxy when you put the top skin back on. Lots of things to discuss here for certain. Supporting the lower skin via the battens that are there to hold the overhead fabric should keep the shape adequately. Just make sure the supports you add inside under the battens are self supporting as they may become lose when all the weight above is removed, in otherwords make a framework that cant readily move. Ill bet with care you will be able to keep your overhead fabric without issue from the major repair being made above, I did.

 

[Vincentc]

Your problem sounds similar to the one one I had with my 43 DCMY. In the process of installing a new windlass I discovered that the balsa coring surrounding the windlass penetration was rotted.
The bad area was smaller than yours, maybe 30 sf. I did it in one project and question the benefit of two mobilizations.
I used 2 part epoxy, filler and plywood. I believe I recorded the project on this site. It's been some time ago.
It was not that bad. Good luck

 

[Vincentc]

See:

https://www.samsmarine.com/forums/s...moval-Deck-Repair-2009/page3&highlight=coring

It appears some of the photos I posted disappeared.

Regards

 

[brettportzer]

I am partway through a similar project, and re reading Vincent's post I will say that it seems to be exactly the way mine was installed.

One thing I caught in re reading though, was what he noted about the cleats:

My main bow cleats did not have backing plates or even larger washers on the inside. Each was attached with 3/8" bronze bolts with regular washers, lock washers and nuts.

Seems crazy to me. So, while my work on the outside, repairing the deck is nearly wrapped up, I am going to do a bunch of fixing up inside the anchor locker on issues like that, as well.

The funny thing is, everything suggests you should take the load off of the windlass, etc, by rigging a bridal to your front cleats.

Makes sense, but my windlass was held in by 6 x 1/2" stainless bolts through the huge 12" windlass backing plates, and the bow roller was through bolted with 4 x 1/2" stainless bolts also, which 1/2" aluminum backing plates.

The cleats had nothing, no plate in the layup or anything like that, just tiny bolts sinking into the fiberglass!

 

[Cricket]

Think it's probably easier to do in sections than all at once. When we replaced the coring we made cutouts in the cleat area and glued in G10 blocks, just made sure everything was on the same plane before glassing the deck back on.

 

[Dan Mapes]

By working from the bottom up I was able to restore the arch in the deck. I have no idea how folks do that working from the top down without braces etc..

For the affected area ->

https://www.samsmarine.com/forums/showthread.php?25361-Pulpit-rebuild-and-support&daysprune=-1

For the story ->

https://www.samsmarine.com/forums/showthread.php?24498-Galley-Maid-Windlass-removal

 

[rsmith]

60 square feet of forward deck needs recoring from the windlass all the way to my escape hatch.Would it be better to do a half at a time or all at once?( im doing it all by myself)

Use this stuff and send it.

https://injectadeck.com/about/

 

[Vincentc]

The "Injectadeck" products looks interesting. However, watching the videos I don't see any effort to remove the water that I encountered in the rotted balsa core in my projects. Has anyone on the site used the product?

 

[bostonhatteras]

I am partway through a similar project, and re reading Vincent's post I will say that it seems to be exactly the way mine was installed.

One thing I caught in re reading though, was what he noted about the cleats:

My main bow cleats did not have backing plates or even larger washers on the inside. Each was attached with 3/8" bronze bolts with regular washers, lock washers and nuts.

Seems crazy to me. So, while my work on the outside, repairing the deck is nearly wrapped up, I am going to do a bunch of fixing up inside the anchor locker on issues like that, as well.

The funny thing is, everything suggests you should take the load off of the windlass, etc, by rigging a bridal to your front cleats.

Makes sense, but my windlass was held in by 6 x 1/2" stainless bolts through the huge 12" windlass backing plates, and the bow roller was through bolted with 4 x 1/2" stainless bolts also, which 1/2" aluminum backing plates.

The cleats had nothing, no plate in the layup or anything like that, just tiny bolts sinking into the fiberglass!

I think you are being generous calling the bolts bronze. On mine, 1970, all cleats were brass machine screws with zero backing, as yours. The bow bit was 4x 1/4” brass screws. Crazy. Bow rails though have aluminum plates embedded, again with brass machine screws/nuts. I couldn’t figure out a way to make a proper fitting backing plate for my spring cleats so I got creative. I filled the entire section of gunnel underneath with polyester hull and deck putty. At least 1.5” thick, 2x length of bolt pattern and parallel to cleat mount. Simply drilled through putty when cured and that’s the backing plate.

 

[rsmith]

The "Injectadeck" products looks interesting. However, watching the videos I don't see any effort to remove the water that I encountered in the rotted balsa core in my projects. Has anyone on the site used the product?

Back almost 30 years ago a friend of mine bought a basket case 53c to run charters. Believe it or not we had the entire boat painted with Imron for 9k up at Cable marine in Palm beach. The only soft spot on the boat was the bridge deck. We drilled probably 50 1/2” holes in the affected area. I got the biggest nail I could find bent it 90* and chucked it up in a drill and ate out the rotten coring in each hole. I tented visqueen over the area and aimed a couple heat lamps at the deck. An hour later the tent looked like a rain forest. Left it go for a week. We were going to try to figure out how to pour resin in the holes. Time and money were running short so we decided to inject great stuff in the holes. Our main concern was the deck lifting when the foam expands but it didn’t. Cleaned the great stuff out of the holes filled with thickened resin and painted. We ran charters on that boat for 3 years with tons of people on the bridge and it never softened up. I don’t know if the rot kept spreading but we did rebed all the screws and any leak areas.
I wouldn’t do that in the pulpit area. I saw a Viking that had torn the pulpit out of the deck. In fact the bolts didn’t fail it actually tore the fiberglass deck. If you have ever seen the thickness of the top deck on a Hatt it’s way thicker than the bottom layer. I know doing the top is way easier but that’s where all the strength is and like the surgeon who fixed my hernia told me “I fixed you but your not like god made you so take it easy” same thing with the top deck you can scarf it out and tape but let’s face it it’s not like Hatteras made it. I’d at least do the area in the rope locker where the cleats and pulpit sit from underneath with Coosa or something tough. Then the rest of the deck is basically just cosmetic I’d try the injection method.