I've been searching through the archives to put together a coherent game plan for sealing my 1978 37-C. The ports are a must before the winter, but I'm thinking that I should approach the leaky ports from the top down. That is, first do the test for the Dorade boxes (plugging the air vent and filling them with water, and then seeing if any water leaks in) to see if water is leaking into the deck. A side note: Are there other spots notorious for leaking water into the deck? However, my deck, when tapped, does not sound too bad. So the issue is whether or not, before dealing with the ports, I should try to figure out where leaks come into the deck, address those, and then turn to replacing the ports. Even though the winter seems a ways off, I suspect there would be a time crunch if I try to seal and fill any bad spots in the deck, and only afterwards take care of the ports, but on the other hand, I don't want to take out the ports, scrape away the bad wood, put some sort of epoxy in there, and then seal new ports to the epoxy, only to have sent the water somewhere else, which will cause me other problems. Can the water travel that far, or have people found that these are separate problems? If leaks into the deck do not affect the ports, I would probably prefer to tackle those first. Also, could one of the veterans point me to what they consider the best step-by-step account of installing new portholes in the archives or elsewhere(foam or epoxy, smartest gameplan, best type of silicon, etc.) Anyone who wants to talk more about this, please feel free to email me at jpeskin@stanford.edu Thanks for the responses to my last post.
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Water ingress.
Good plan Josh. I would modify it somewhat and not test the dorades. Simply open them up, clean out the gunk and put a good coating of epoxy in there. If they haven't deteriorated yet they will soon. The other sources of water are the staysail traveler, the mast partners, the four hatches, all the screw holes for the handrails, and the companionway cover. Aren't old boats fun?
As far as rebedding the portlights you won't know until you pull them out. If you find solid plywood coring then coat that with expoxy and reinstall. But you might find the coring completely rotted away. Just leave lots of time for this project. Probably two portlights a day given good weather. That assumes that you can get the outside frames off without breaking them. Mine came off in pieces. I was installing new so that was not a concern.
Good plan Josh. I would modify it somewhat and not test the dorades. Simply open them up, clean out the gunk and put a good coating of epoxy in there. If they haven't deteriorated yet they will soon. The other sources of water are the staysail traveler, the mast partners, the four hatches, all the screw holes for the handrails, and the companionway cover. Aren't old boats fun?
As far as rebedding the portlights you won't know until you pull them out. If you find solid plywood coring then coat that with expoxy and reinstall. But you might find the coring completely rotted away. Just leave lots of time for this project. Probably two portlights a day given good weather. That assumes that you can get the outside frames off without breaking them. Mine came off in pieces. I was installing new so that was not a concern.
Josh, check out article by Terry Arnold
Terry did on his Hunter 33c what most of us did concerning port lights, however, Terry did a most excellent job of recording the steps with pictures. Up in the air about the best sealant, I used 5200 which alot of people disagreed about, but that is what the instructions said to use which came with mine, and .. NO LEAKS! When I replace them in another 20 yrs, I will worry about the 5200 then. Good luck.
Terry did on his Hunter 33c what most of us did concerning port lights, however, Terry did a most excellent job of recording the steps with pictures. Up in the air about the best sealant, I used 5200 which alot of people disagreed about, but that is what the instructions said to use which came with mine, and .. NO LEAKS! When I replace them in another 20 yrs, I will worry about the 5200 then. Good luck.
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