Cabin Top Deck Repair/Delamination

[JMatlock]

I need to know if anyone has experience repairing the center of the cabin top that has become springy. It seems to be still hard around the mast, possibly slightly soft to port closer to handrails than to the mast, however more to the side of the mast than aft. The bulkheads seem to be firmly in place and solid. I have looked at Don Casey's book, Hull and Deck Repair. Also, a website that outlines two methods. 1. Cutting thru from the cabin interior with a circular saw and not thru the top deck. 2. Drilling holes, drying out the core, and filling it with epoxy. Has anyone done this repair? Please let me know how you did it and how well it works.

 

[Bob]

Remove Hull Liner

Hi J.Did a repair to a 23 Sea Sprite with deck core failure. Removed original core and used marine plywood along with oak to rebuild. WEST SYSTEM was the filler / bonding material. Don't remember the details of the WEST filler adders we used but the catalog info is good. Had to replace the original chain plate anchors. The deck had sunk at about 2" and a couple of chain plates were not really doing much. That repair was done about 5 years ago, the boat sold 3 years ago and she looks great today. Present owner has sailed her hard and is happy.Did the repair in 1 month working weekends including getting the boat ready for spring launch. Good Luck with your project,

 

[R.W.Landau]

JMatlock

I had some problem with my bow deck. The upper skin was loose form the core material but the core was solid. I drilled holes and injected polyester resin. the repair made it through the summer fine. I also painted my deck and topsides.r.w.landau

 

[Dave]

Deck core repair

I had an area where a screw had a slight leak and the core rotted out for a significant area around it. Instead of removing the laminate, I had the deck hatch removed and then gouged out all of the damaged coring going in horizontally from the deck hatch opening, then I had strips of wood bonded in to replace the material removed using epoxy as the bonding agent. It came out great and no impact on the top deck or the hull cabin ceiling. I had the work done by the yard and it was reasonable.You may want to consider this if you have a deck hatch in the area of the bad core.Good luckdave

 

[R.W.Landau]

Dave,

Great idea. You could even add a clear screw-.in deck plate because our 25's don't have a hatch there. The 272 has a skylight type of thing there.Make the hole for the deck plate then proceed as Dave had mentioned then you will have light or even a vent cowling for a vent on a hot summer day. You could even put one on each side.The clear deck plate should be of a size that will accept a vent cowling or even a Solar vent.The deck plate gets sun damaged in about 3 years, but they do let in light. I put one of these (A 6" that no cowling or solar vent fit in)in the fore deck of my old 23 Paceship to light the vee berth.r.w.landau