I recentlyt purchased an H34 1983 model and I knew I would have to repair the compression post, The post rotted from the bottom it looks like the water from the head started the damage. It does not appear that it is attached to the floor beam I see no place where it goes into that crossmember. The beam is fully glassed and shows no damage, does it just sit on the floor and and attach on top? I have not completly removed the teak piece yet but any help would be greatly appreciated.
Compression Post on H34 not Attached
- Thread starter louistrotta
- Start date
It just sits there held in place by the compression from the mast above. That is if the block inside that fiberglass beam on top hasn't rotted or compressed.
You can inspect the post more thoroughly by removing the head door, then look for the teak plugs in the door jamb. Pop those out and unscrew the door jamb. That will give you visibility of the actual post inside the teak cladding. You can also try and look up through the hole in the beam where the wires come down and see if it has been repaired in the past, or is original and deteriorated.
Lots has been published about this issue. It's not that difficult to repair (some may disagree). Start with your inspection and a search of the archives, then get back to us. There will be a lot of help available to you here. Also, post pictures.
You can inspect the post more thoroughly by removing the head door, then look for the teak plugs in the door jamb. Pop those out and unscrew the door jamb. That will give you visibility of the actual post inside the teak cladding. You can also try and look up through the hole in the beam where the wires come down and see if it has been repaired in the past, or is original and deteriorated.
Lots has been published about this issue. It's not that difficult to repair (some may disagree). Start with your inspection and a search of the archives, then get back to us. There will be a lot of help available to you here. Also, post pictures.
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Yup.. Like Allan says, the post is not held in place top or bottom, except by compression from the rig loads. The door frame/bulkhead keeps it where it belongs.. so when ya have the teak off, the post can be removed by releasing the rig tension and jacking slightly. Attached picture shows top where post bears on cross beam.. no other attachments needed. You can see the trace around the OD of the post I made before removing it so I'd know where to cut the beam.
Also, see in Claude's photo, it is not necessary to remove the entire bulkhead between the cabin and the head. I got a little overzealous on my repair.
That doesn't look like a compression post failure. It looks like a cabin top failure by too aggressively cranking down on the rigging.
Thanks to everyone. I will try to post some pictures this week when I can get back to the boat. Everyones help and advice has been pricelss so far as I learn the different boat systems and the repairs. I can tell you the forum has saved me not only time but lots of money as I use the repairs others have done as my DIY resource. Thanks to all in the Hunter owners group.
That's what we thought originally even though we were tuned in spec. Then we started inspecting. From the picture you can see the "support" inside the beam is a transverse piece of Douglas Fir. That's not the ideal direction to take a compressive load. See the deformation in the block. Next, there is a big notch for the wires to pass through. That is the actual center of the mast, so you can see much of the load was unsupported. This then allowed the deck to take the load and push the beam down and around the compression post.
Others have found water intrusion as well through the hole in the deck under the mast. So not only do they have the beam support (if you want to call it that) crushing under the unbalanced load, they also had rot of that beam and the guts of the compression post. The solution in my case was to fill the cavity from the underside of the deck to the top of the post with aluminum.
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Allan, My 1988 Hunter 33.5 had the same problem. Water leakage from under the mast wiring hole into the cabin leaked water onto the wooden compression post. After removing the teak covering that encased the post, I could literally grab chunks of rotten wood from the post. Did a repair similar to yours with an aluminum post & wrapped it with teak.