here we go----another boat repair!!!

[zeehag]

coupla years ago i bought my neighbors disaster zone. is called a formosa 41 yankee clipper. he had blown the engine, which has since been replaced--yay!! and were some other other big projects as i was negotiating for the boat at tiny price....lol...so--now we start the project from hell in the bow--we are going to be removing the rotted wood from the underside of the deck--also known as the overhead in the forepeak----is wet rot dried into powder--lovely to work with, so we need to buy the protective garb required for asthmatics to work on boats!!! and to live in them once the powder starts to fly around....and the fiberglassing and everything....
but lets get back to the point here--seems my windlass, with a good load, will, in the present condition of this bow, will not hold--we wont drag but we will break--so is undergoing repairs for strength. we will remove the powdered delaminated wood and replace with new ply and fiberglass.is a tight spot to try to fit into , so we have to remove the sampson posts. this is being done while my boat is on a mooring ball--we will use a bridle i have already put into use, and instead of using my sampson post to secure to mooring, we will use the bridle thru the hawse holes and around the bobstay. i had planned on making a fiberglass patch for the bow out of an impregnated and encapsulated bit of 3/8 ply and feathering it into the decking from above--but i think we wont be patching it-we will be replacing it while in the water. i will post pix this afternoon when i am back from the various places we need to go to get the bits for the start of destruction of my boat!!!!destruction then construction!!!! i am ready--now the boat needs to get ready for this adventure we plan for later this year.....EXCELSIOR!!!!!!.
the ask all sailors forum gets this as there ist a formosa owners forum here ..yet.....

 

[tommays]

The biggest issue i had in the deck recore was ONCE you even removed the inner skin it pretty much had ZERO abilty to keep its shape or support weight


Once you removed the core it had a bit less than ZERO and even with the new core did not get stiff untill the inner skin was back on

 

[Ross]

I had that same repair on my Islander. The builder had pressed plywood into wet fiberglass and stapled some vinyl headliner over that. The fore hatch leaked and kept the plywood wet. Scraped it down witha wide chisel and then sanded to clean glass. Lined the existing glass with Airex core and glassed over the Airex. When applying glass over head, roll the cloth aroung a cardboard tube and wet the foam with resin on a paint roller and start the cloth onto the wet resin while you wet the cloth with the paint roller. Practice by wallpapering the underside of you kitchen table. It was the meanest, most unpleasant work that I had to do on my boat. Tyvek suits. spray painters hoods, eye protection, respirators, a fan supplying fresh air, gloves. Some of the work may require a small person lying on their back to reach into the corners. Do you have any friends who are Dwarfs? err I mean little people. lol.

 

[sailaway78]

I can't even imagine

After giving it some thought, I can't even imagine what a PITA doing glass work overhead would be. Just doing vertical on the rudder was an exercise in itself. I had resin smeared from one end of me to the other. Even with the slowest possible catalyst, it kicked fast enough that there was no time to worry about getting it everywhere. Just go as fast as possible, and worry bout the mess later. Overhead??? Certainly gonna be a fun exercise.

 

[Ross]

Re: I can't even imagine

I had a lot of practice on Bietzpadlin. I lined the interior from the companion way to the forepeak and from the turn of the bilge to the cabin top with airex core and three plies of chopped strand mat and woven roving. I only lost about three yards of mat during the entire effort. I worked alone for the entire job.

 

[zeehag]

lol sounds like so much fun...glad i hired a wood worker !!! we have to do overhead beams with a deck curve built in, remove hatch and cabinetry and the sampson posts so the work can be done--and i need to replace the sampson posts, as the kind of oak used rots same way mahogany does--from inside to out so it looks gooood until it breaks leaving the rot to show....
as this is a formosa, and one of the ones that gave formosa a bad name, at that, i dont have interior glass in the forepeak--just ply with glass overlay on th eoutside of the boat---so removal of the wood is easy--it is powdery and flaky at this point--last time was looked at was purely wet rot..now has dried, as i had hoped it would when i was sailing the gulf---goood planning, that!! and with removal of the sampson posts, is easier to gain access to the tiny small area involved. the wood skin on the ceilings inside the forepeak is also delaminating, but that is easy to fix...just re-skin....
and my hired hand is 6'1!!! with broad shoulders!!! goood thing we are planning to replace the sampson posts!!!!
most of the glassing will be outside the boat on the decks under the sprit--we have to raise the sprit--will show pix as we go----we do have to glass the anchor locker and make sure the lower fitting for dolphin stiriker and bobstay are easily accessible for future refitting....replace the bulkhead between the anchor locker and forepeak, which will be made into a work and tool room..with a foldup workbench/berth! complete with new skin inside hull and everything!!! new top for hatch--the cover is delaminated ply--will be lexan so there is light coming in--is sooo dark----and make a safety over top with some wood strips added for strength....hooooyaahh--she lives!!!

ross--that is such a cool name for a boat!!!!


phillip--you will be getting here after the deck is fixed--so i wont have that work left to do !!!! all the glassing should be done by the time your skinny booty gets into kali!!! but i will still have some goood stuff left!!!! electrical, finessing engine.....stuff and stuff....lol big boat , low bux--here we go!!!!!

 

[Slim pickins]

Wow you go Zee!!! Get as much done before I get there too!! I hate working with glass, always have it everywhere and that's working with gravity not against it. Save the mechanical for me, I'll get my hands greasy anytime, it comes off easier than getting resin off hands.

 

[zeehag]

hooooiyaaaaahhhhh!!!!! will have enough work to go around, but the f-glass will definitely be done before oct!!!! wow i cant wait to get this beastie moving !!!!!

 

[tommays]

After ripping out a about 60 sq ft of plywood

I found on the advise of a repair person on sailing anarchy

That to turn it into fiberglass again

To not full around and go right with the 6" or 8" 16/24 grit grinder and save a lot of time and MONEY as one 8" X 24 grit disk will out last about 20 random orbit disks

this a bit of a snow storm but its a fast snow storm

 

[Ross]

I never considered putting an 8 inch disk on a 4 1/2 in. right angle tool. Did it not attack your knuckles? I went through a pile of 4 1/2 inch disks.

 

[tommays]

I have a 5" random and a 6" random with dust collector ( I love the dust collector ) and the Norton 3X blue hook and loop disks last the longest

The 6"/ 8" is a vari-speed grinder/polisher and at about 1500 RPM is very easy to control and really cleans up the glass

You guide it like a floor buffing machine

 

[RAD]

I love it when you guys talk tools
So I'm not as crazy as I thought........I removed as much stuff as possible from the engine room of my center cockpit and did the same job laying on pfd cushions (there still stored in the engine room and used quite a lot for the knees) and using West Systems on the underside of the fiberglass as an adhesive and putting new plywood back up then supporting it with sticks and shims.
To this day there's still globs of epoxy on some cooling hose and the cushions that wasn't covered

 

[tommays]

nothing better than sticks and wax paper

 

[Ross]

There is a wonderful product called corebond. It is about the same consistency as acrylic tile adhesive you mix it with a catalyst and you spread it with 1/4x1/4 notch trowel. Press your core into it and walk away. It hardened in about 10-15 minutes and you can go to the next section.

 

[zeehag]

finally--pix

tommays--tease a lady with those gorgeous tools!!!! dang --and not even volunteer to come over and use them!!!!


finally--the promised pix--i only have a couplafew--i screwed up in the uploading process and lost a bunch, had to take more.....

anchor locker , the well....

forward overhead--see the rotted wood--no fiberglass overhead int here--just wood....with goo coming thru from bad patches made in the past--

forepeak bulkhead--lower--rotten and delaminated plywood--needs replacement and epoxy- the skin /liner also in need of replacement..delaminating at sole--not pictured.....

 

[zeehag]

more leaky teaky pix.....

the 2 i lost , i again found--one shows the delaminating liner , the other is an overhead shot in chainlocker--you see, there is no fiberglass--just delaminating wood, as these particular boats were made with ply decking covered with teakwood decking. they leaked. a lot. is kinda why these and other teak decked boats made in taiwan are known as leaky teakies.theply that was used was phillipine mahogany--nasty soft but gorgeous stuff --doesnt work well , however in long term anythings for structure. teak and holly sole had cetol then varnish by a previous owner ...

the board along the middle of the liner is the support for a berth , long gone...i will make a tool room/work room in here--there will nbe a work bench that folds up insteadd of a berth. i donot know anyone short and skinny enough to fit in this room to sleep.

 

[Ross]

Re: more leaky teaky pix.....

That looks a lot like Bietzpadlin did when I started and I had the great luxury of having her beside my driveway just outside of my shop. The only luxuries I didn't have was a shed and enough time and money to work continuously. The result was it took a long time to get her done because I had to work for a living and I wasn't going to wade through snow to work on her.

 

[zeehag]

what--no wading thru snow!!????? sheesh...... we have next best thing to snow this summer---is called chill factor--y'all got a heat index and i we get chill factor!!! lol---at least we dont get summer storms, normally, so the drying i did over the year i was sailing with phillip did do some good..LOL!!! best way to dry a boat--plastic, dark color over everything tender and tape!!!! no water should get inside, but air needs to flow--tricky!!
learned some tricks about prevention of seawater from enteringg via sprit--place rubber innertube type gasket into the spaces around the sprit at exit from prow.....