Rebedding hull to deck joint

[victorhoisington]

I've embarked on a 2 year project. I recently purchased an old Plastic classic, a 1962 Shock 25, hull #63. This boat was originally in San Diego, as best I can tell and spent the better part of its life in salt water. I found it after it sat outside in Wyoming for 5 years.

My plan is to restore it to some sort of sailing condition and use it as my race boat here in Colorado. All of the hardware is corroded beyond repair as well as most of the rigging. I'm just about done stripping everything off the boat so I can dig into the sanding and prepping for painting next summer.

Now for today's questions. I pulled the rub rail off to expose the hull to deck joint. As I work to clean that up, I've found that most of the rivets along this joint are heavily corroded. The caulking in the joint appears to be reasonably solid and intact.

Should I (sorry I don't have any pictures):

1. Replace all of the rivets since the existing ones are in bad shape
2. Dig out the existing caulk (who knows what it was back in 1962) and replace.

I don't mind doing the work but, don't want to do extra if its not really needed. This will be a race boat not a showboat and it will be on inland lakes not open ocean, so as longs as it doesn't impact the general integrity of the boat I'm OK.

I'm looking for opinions and comments, all are welcome.

Thanks for taking the time to read and/or comment,

Victor
Shock 25

 

[higgs]

If the price of the boat was real cheap, and the corrosion isn't
too bad, I would leave well enough alone.
Digging all the bedding compound out and replacing would be a huge job, so you don't want to do that.

I guess if the rivets really bothered me, I would replace them one at a times which would disturb the joint much less than drilling them all out at one time.

You are on an inland lake and this boat is not likely to be subject to really harsh conditions.

If you are not getting leaks now, why mess with it? You can always go back and fix problem spots when they happen.

 

[BobM]

My impression

Depending on the material, the rivets may be important or unimportant. If the joint was made with 5200 the rivets are less important than if the joint was sealed with butyl and through bolted through the toe rail as on my S2. If the caulk is a hard solid without a lot of evident cracks you are probably okay, but if it is soft enough to dig into I'd replace the rivets. Just my opinion.

 

[Ross]

Re: My impression

I just glassed over the outside of the joint and faired it in. No one will ever have to fool with it.