Soft floor/hull

dLj

dLj

.
Mar 23, 2017
3,875
Belliure 41 Back in the Chesapeake
Michaelminer said:
In my past two sailboats, (Sanibel and Pearson) there was never water in the cabin. I sealed the cabin properly, including building new companion way doors, and using marine grade caulk and installing new weather-tight gaskets on the hatches. If this is done properly, where would water inside the hull come from?
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This is an ideal position. Good design does not design for ideal, but rather should design for predictable less than ideal conditions.

You are talking about a boat. It lives in the water.

dj
 
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Davidasailor26

Davidasailor26

.
May 17, 2004
5,445
Beneteau Oceanis 37 Havre de Grace
Michaelminer said:
If this is done properly, where would water inside the hull come from?
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Two sources of water that can affect even a perfectly sealed boat are the mast (if keel stepped) and prop shaft (If not equipped with a dripless seal). It’s also possible to have some condensation. Even if you don’t have those sources I would design a solution that can accommodate some water ingress as DLJ suggests.
 
Tally Ho

Tally Ho

.
Jan 7, 2011
5,264
Oday 322 East Chicago, IN
Michaelminer said:
I cut the edges of the sole everywhen you can walk. Between the sole and hull I found what you see above. 2-3 inches of standing water in some places. Connected to the fiberglass sole was not even plywood. It was more like luan board. And then, for support, the luan lays on top of some kind of foam. But only in a few places. The support foam, which is very similar to expansion foam, in not consistently places between the luan and hull. It is just in a few places. In one of them, (the "brain" looking picture), the foam is soft. As you can see, there is nothing like a stringer. It is just hull and the horrible foam. So is the best plan to build some type of epoxy support stringer type braces that follow the contour of the hull and are level at the tops, and flange screw some type of high grade plywood into them and install fiberglass sheets over that and epoxy that to the fiberglass coming down the sides that meet the sole? Or should I find a similar foam product and use that to support the plywood, like it was?
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If that was from the factory, it has to be the worst foam job ever. I have foam under my engine sump, and it looks way better than that.

Since you describe the floor as some sort of luan, I am assuming it wasn’t original (no photos before you cut out the floor?). So that would lead me to believe that this is some PO’s attempt to fix something in the floor (Squeaks, soft spots or something).

Adding some sort of support under your new floor makes sense I think.

Greg
 
Scott T-Bird

Scott T-Bird

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Oct 26, 2008
6,216
Catalina 320 Barnegat, NJ
Michaelminer said:
Now just think for a moment, I said the soft floor was from the bottom of the companionway steps, and went to the start of the head. How could anyone think that the bottom of the steps and the head are part of the cockpit?
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"From the bottom of the companion way steps to the stern, the floor is spongy." That quote is from your opening post. I have to admit that I started to think you were talking about your cockpit floor because I could think of no other floor that extends from the companion way to the stern. But you also talked about the bottom of the steps and later you mentioned the "sole of the boat floor" so I guess that your reference to the stern may have been a mistake that could easily confuse anybody trying to respond. Besides that, spongy decks on the exterior surface of the boat are frequently discussed in this forum. I think it is pretty rare that we ever discuss severe moisture problems within an interior flooring system. Usually we talk about restoring interior floors based on age and excessive wear, but not very much about a saturated core under a fiberglass surface. That's pretty unusual, no?
 
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