Tuesday, September 30, 2008



OK, so this is what is left after I removed the whole core from the cockpit deck. I didn't want to do this now, but the best time to do it was now when it was all apart. There was not one piece of good wood on this part, although the sides where the seats are is in good shape, so that's a small blessing. This isn't an expensive job if you do it yourself, but it is a lot of labor.

So I cut out all of the rotten wood and cleaned up the fiberglass. You can see at the top of the picture where I epoxied some aluminum corner channel which will sit at the centerboard trunk and deck junction. It will also give me a good spot to bolt the plates that will hold the centerboard.

Here you can see where I am epoxying some more aluminum around the hole where the cable to lift the keel comes through. I figured it would be stronger and corrode slower than wood at least. The rest of the deck I will core with 1/4 plywood and cover all of this with fiberglass, so we'll see. Hopefully with a good layer of 5200 adhesive caulk joining the centerboard trunk with the deck I won't get these leaks anymore and won't have to worry about it.

So I am making progress, I hope to have the majority of this epoxy work done by this weekend. You can also see I have hull 689, or if you read it upside down, it's hull 689.

1 comment:

Brian Milby said...

Looks as though you are doing a MAJOR refit to your boat, wow! What was wrong with her, and how did you come to acquire?

Brian