Saturated Foam??

[rbezdon]

I have read many postings regarding foam and replacement, flooring etc but my question is more in a troubleshooting line. I have an 88 boat which has spent most of its life stored outdoors. Winterizing includes covering etc but none the less over the years water has on accasoin gotten inside of the boat. Now I am concerned that the floatation foam has become saturated. What is the best and/or easiest way to asses the condition of the foam short of ripping up the floor?? My flooring, while haveing a slight soft spot or two, is in fairly good shape and I hate to rip all of it out without knowing it need to be. The reason I ask is I seem to have lost 5 MPH or so of top end and with all of the extensive engine work I have done and the fact that the engine is performing very well, I am suspecting I may be hauling some extra weight. Thanks for the inputs.

 

[swimmin' for shore]

Re: Saturated Foam??

Schaumburg. My girlfriend is from Elgin. The first time we met, it was in Schaumburg. Good weekend. <br />You can drill a small spot with a 1" hole, or so. You can easily glass that cut back in place after you've checked. Just drill down, check out the foam. Cut a little out, and then put that piece of wood right back in place. You can buy the fiberglass repair kit online, through uscomposites.com, and in a hundred other places. Locally, you could go down to a marina, but I couldn't tell you where your closest one is. Sometimes, Home Depot has them.

 

[rbezdon]

Re: Saturated Foam??

Thanks for the reply swimmin. I have been considering doing that but I wasnt quite sure where to put the hole as I am not shure what is under there and where. I really didnt want to hit a stringer or something and have to put several holes. Also, I guess the best way to deal with the carpeting is to slit it and them glue it to the glass patch after patching the drill hole. I was also considering doing it under the seats next to the engine compartment, say under the battery case, if there is foam there. That way it really wouldnt matter much what the patch looked like. Is there typically foam everywhere under the flooring except where the dtringers touch the flooring (and the gas tank of course). Would the gas tank be "mounted" in the foam or is it in a seperate compartment. Sorry, but I am a wrenching guy more than a restore guy. I have rebilt, replaced and repowered but never did too much interior work, just removed and repaired a couple of the seats. What a pain. I like the engine work much better.<br /><br />I know Elgin well. We frequent the Grand Victoria. I prefer a boat running 60MPH across the water and my wife preferrs the stationary kind that takes your money even faster than the ones we all call holes in the water. By the way, we have a Boaters World here in Schaumburg. Funny, one of the other guys I correspond on this site with in the Outdrives forum was from here and moved to Washington too, Puget Sound area.

 

[JustMrWill]

Re: Saturated Foam??

I suggest that you drill at one of your "soft spots". You can be pretty certain that there isn't a tringer there and you can also evaluate the condition of the wood. The other choice would be under on of the seats so it will hide the pathc job.<br /><br />-JMW

 

[rbezdon]

Re: Saturated Foam??

Thanks Justmrwill, That was what I was thinking of ding basically when I was asking if the foam extends under the seats at the rear of the boat, next to the engine compartment (where the battery case is). I thought maybe a 2" or 3" hole saw would give me enough room to see clearly what is under there.

 

[swimmin' for shore]

Re: Saturated Foam??

Hey Vatter. I kinda forgot about this, somewhere along the way. I've been pretty hot and heavy with my own project, too, so I'm sometimes "distracted". First, JustMrWill has it right. A soft spot is a good spot to start. A common place for a stringer is centerline, naturally. You could go 3 inches to right or left of the center. Still another idea that I failed to mention would be to find out the optimal weight of your boat and go weigh her. Give a tolerance of 100 lbs. one way or the other, and any more than that is probably wet foam. Wet foam would probably add between 300 and 400 lbs., judging by what I pulled out of my last boat. <br />I don't know what kind of boat you have, but the gas tank in my Reinell is mounted in the foam, under the floor. If your tank is under the floor, foam is a common "bedding" for it. Provides structure and protects the tank. My only hangup with most builders that do this is that steel tanks RUST. When they rust, what can yo do but cut into your floor. If I ever replace the floor in the Reinell, which is possible, I'll bed the tank in foam again, but I'll be making an access plate to get to the whole gas tank. <br />I know the Grand Victoria, too. I've lost money over there from time to time. I've been doing a fine job of avoiding it more recently, however. Another kind of boat is getting the majority of my spare change.

 

[rbezdon]

Re: Saturated Foam??

Thanks for the update swimin. I suspected the tank was sitting in a bad of the foam. The tank is under the center of the floor right in front of the engine compartment. I have an 88 Bayliner Capri 1950 open bow w/ OMC 5.7 Cobra.I forgot to post it here. I have been a frequent poster on the I/O forum and most of the guys there know my boat (and hence my problems) well.<br /><br />By the way, I can't have a stringer in the centerline. I have a bilge storage (for skis and the like) area in the center, then the gas tank and then the engine compartment

 

[rbezdon]

Re: Saturated Foam??

My boat looks almost identical to the one in this webpade from realgun except his is an outboard so the rear construction is different.<br /><br /> http://www.shareaproject.com/projectTut.php?p=8

 

[Buttanic]

Re: Saturated Foam??

In my experience if it has foam, it has wet foam.

 

[rbezdon]

Re: Saturated Foam??

unfortunately, I suspect you are right and was sort of grasping at straws to find a way to prove I was wrong. Not only wet, but soggy wet and darn heavy.