How deck is attached to hull on C 22's

[Sea Scout Ship 300]

Can someone tell me how the deck is attached to the hull of a Catalina 22 vintage 1975 -1977 (cannot remember the precise number on the boat at the moment). Reason for asking is that this weekend the port side stay was pulling up the deck in a breeze of 20-25 with puffs higher than 25. Guess the stay pulled the deck up maybe a half inch at the point of contact, causing a number of cracks. Foredeck is soft or springy when one walks on it. Is it workable to through-bolt a sheet of half inch plywood to stiffen the deck?Or, do we need to run an "L" shaped plate along the sides and through-bolt it to the plywood and the sides of the hull, relieving stress on the old deck?What works????Look forward to hearing from you. You can email Ship300sails@yahoo.com , if desired.Thanks very much. Skipper G

 

[Bill Ogilvie]

Balsa core

The inner roof liner and the outer deck are sandwiched on a balsawood core. That's what I've heard, I've never taken a C22 apart. What happens is that water gets into the core and loosens the glue. The composite looses its integrity so it slides around when the shrouds pull. You might notice some sagging when you step on the deck. Reinforcing will keep the shrouds from getting pulled out of the deck, perserving your mast & possibly your boat as well. Hope this helps. maybe someone else has some experience with this problem.

 

[R Kolb]

C22 core

The core in the deck of a C22 is 3/8" marine plywood. You should not just use bolts and such to resolve this problem. Your deck has delaminated and *must* be fixed. If it has simply delaminated then you can inject resins to fix it. I did this job on my 1986 C22 and was able to fix it. If the core wood is rotten then you must replace it. There are books on this at West Marine. It involves cutting off the top laminate (the fiberglass), cutting out the rotten core, replacing the core and re-gluing the whole thing back together. If you have rotten core throughout the deck you have a lot of work ahead of you. Taking shortcuts could put your rigging at risk and that could be dangerous.

 

[TedsSailingPage]

I assume it is the lower shrouds . . .

. . that are pulling through the deck. If it is the upper shroud, then you have more problems than just the deck.The lower shrouds on those early year C22 do not have adequate load distribution on the eye bolt and it tends to pull through the deck. There are aluminum plates that you can add to the underside of the eye bolt that will prevent that.The repair would be to remove the eye bolt and asses the damage to the deck. You may have deck delamination in general around that area. You will need to get lots of penetrating epoxy and try to re-seal the lamination. The deck is marine plywood as its core. Balsa cores are used on fancy boats.Regards,Ted