Re: Pics included!
Re: Pics included!
Well, I went out today and started working on the boat to get a better idea of whats going on. I took a flathead screwdriver and slowly took out the fiberglass in the middle of the crack so that I can assess whats going on inside. As I took out the fiberglass, I got to the foam. At first I was upset that the foam was practically right there but after taking out about an inch of wet foam, the rest was bone dry! I was really happy that it didn't get as far as it could have - I guess this is because I only had a hair-line crack where the water was slowly seeping in. I was also able to see my Stringer to the side. I poked the stringer with the screwdriver to see if it was soft or hard - it was rock hard and fully covered in fiberglass.
Since the Keel of the boat is significantly lower than the strake where the crack is, my only concern now is getting any excess water out of there. Does anyone have any ideas? I can only think of jacking/tilting the trailer a bit on one side only to see if any water comes out and use a Shop-vac first to pull water out, then air it dry with a blower. I also understand that there are compounds I can put to attract the water towards the opening?
Any productive/constructive posts are appreciated.
About a year ago, I asked for help with deck rot under the helm seat post on my boat. The entire deck was and is still rock solid, except for the bolt holes under the base. The deck was flaking and unstable surrounding each of six holes. The deck would not hold the bolts. It was suggested that I may be able to drill the holes out larger and fill with epoxy if the foam underneath was clean and dry. I drilled down through each hole and several surrounding areas and came up with only clean dry foam shavings. I thought, great!!! There was only foam under each hole, though. Nothing solid to support the epoxy. I cut a 16"X20" rectangular piece of decking surrounding the holes. I pulled it up and found clean, dry foam... except for just one tiny little dark spot not even the diameter of a pencil. I figured I'd dig it out with my finger and get rid of potential growth. I ended up digging down 3-4 inches before it started getting larger. by the time I got down about 12 inches, I was digging out foam with all four fingers of one hand. About 1.5" from the bottom, The dark foam disappeared and what was left was clean, but wet foam. The water in the bottom of my hull was crysal clear, having been filtered by the foam it had passed through. My winter project this year will be redecking my boat and replacing two stringers which have a small amount of rot. As I said previously, the rest of the deck is solid as a rock, but if I hadn't cut out the small portion of decking, I never would have found what I did. I covered the rectangular opening with 3/4" cabinet grade plywood after mitering the edges, predrilling, and sealing with 6 coats of epoxy. I secured the seat post with stainless steel togglers I got from iboats, and then sealed the whole thing to the deck. I then screwed it down with SS screws where I had predrilled all around the perimeter prior to the 6 coats of epoxy. I cleaned up the excess sealer which got pressed out from under the cover and let it cure for 3 days before using the boat. This is a temporary fix for the boating season. My point in telling you all of this, is that when it comes to water in foam, damage is not always apparent. It's also, as I discovered, not always where you'd expect to find it. In my case, it was several inches away from where the obvious damage was. You may want to cut out a larger area than you already have, to look for additional damage. Water creeps through foam and rot can start in surrounding areas.
I've been waiting to have the time to properly post what I found in my decking, with pictures, and get a good resto thread going. I read your thread and thought you may benefit from my unfortunate findings.
Good luck. Hope I've helped.
