hatch cover void

[fireone]

i have an oday 23 and ive noticed that the hatch cover(seating area)-over the "ice box" has gotten spongy and leaking a brown subsatnce
i took it off boat and it has two layers(void in between)-is there any reason this happened or is it designed that way?
im thinking of drilling holes and filling the void(liquid nails) as much as possible to stiffen up the seat-looking for any comments or suggestions
thanx

 

[Ward H]

It originally was a layer of plywood sandwiched between the two layers of fiberglass/gel coat. Water intrusion rotted the wood to mush, that's the brown stuff you see oozing out.
You can drill several holes from the bottom and inject them with epoxy but without cleaning the inside layers of the fiberglass nothing will probably stick. It may stiffen it up enough for you.
The proper fix would be to take the hatch off, use a multi saw or Dremel tool to cut the bottom layer off, clean out all the old wood, lay in a new layer of wood soaked in resin and then use resin to glue on the panel you cut off.
They also make a plastic filler you can use in place of wood.
I've used G10 fiberglass board from eBay but it is heavy. Using the G10 you don't really need to finish the bottom of the hatch.

 

[Richard19068]

Ward H has some good comments.

I'm going through this now. Just recored a portion of my anchor locker cover and am currently in the middle of the cockpit locker cover. The good part is you can remove the cover to make it easier to work on and can work from the inside/bottom.
The original core is/was end grain balsa wood but I am using marine plywood.

Lots of good information in the West System fiberglass boat repair and maintenance manual. Your problem is probably covered in section 5.

The drill and fill might work in your case but I don't think I would use liquid nails.

You will probably get more replies if you post on the ask all sailors forum. This certainly isn't specific to O'Day's

Good luck.

 

[fireone]

thanx- i did open it up from underside!!
loked like some sort of resin paper in there that was wet
im replacing with plywood-gluing to lid- using west system- 2 part epoxy-then gluing old fibreglass to that
thanx for reply all