Wet stuff

[Jim Legere]

The weather was finally warm enough to make it a boatyard weekend (a long weekend to boot!) so I decuded to tackle the "wet stuff". From following the advice of the H-37C gurus, I knew where to look (thanks, Gene, Ed et al). When the top came off the dorades, there was lots of punky plywood in there. It looked bad, but a couple of hours with a chisel took care of that. Really, once you remove the rotten plywood, there is just the deck and the headliner - all solid fiberglass with just a gap to fill in between. I plan to use some foam insulation board, gooped in with epoxy putty and glass tape to rebuild the bottom of the dorades.The next ripping & tearing I did was on the windows (ports). I took all ten out of the cabin sides and found lots more wet plywood but, thankfully, no serious rot. The ply seems to be 1" in the main cabin & 3/4" in the forward cabin, bonded only to the outside (deck) fiberglass. The headliner was just drawn up to the ply by a few bronze screws that were hidden under the window frames. Out of 10 ports, only two had wood that stayed dry. It appears that the silicone caulk stayed bonded to the plastic window frame, but lost its bond with the exposed end grain of the plywood, letting in water that then ran down inside the headliner. I am going to take Ed's approach and epoxy putty over the wood (after I have routed it back a 1/4" or so). Then when I install the new Beckson Rain Drain ports, the silicone will bond to plastic on both sides - hopefully more reliable. And if I do get a leak, the water should leak directly inside to let me know I have a problem...I still haven't tackled the companionway yet. Everything points to more of the same there. There aren't many show stopper problems on the H-37C, just a lot of niggly little things to fix. Gene Gruender really has identified most of them. Ed Schenck is the port light expert. Anyone contemplating these repairs should search the archives for their articles. Thanks, guys!

 

[Ed Schenck]

Lucky guy!

You were lucky to find plywood when removing the ports Jim. Mine were like yours fortunately. But there are many stories of portlight removal where the plywood was gone, completely rotted away! Right Tom? When I removed mine I was surprised, like you, that the silicone was still holding and pliable. My only really wet frames were where a previous owner had replaced the portlights.

 

[Tom Hadoulias]

Rotten wood galore...

Right Ed! Mine where real bad. Actually six of them still are cause I have'nt finished them all. NFM stainless going back in after the repairs. The four I've installed to date where a pain in the butt. Hence the last six are sitting, hoping that the motivation level goes up high enough to get em done. I essentially had no plywood left between the liner and cabinside on the starboard side between the head and the forward bulkhead portlights. I've filled the area in with expanding foam and will epoxy the exposed areas before the portlights go in. Big job... No fun!!! This is the last major project that I really have to complete. The NFM's are nice portlights but they are tuff to install. The rotting wood was attributed to the Bomars leaking and the dorades draining between the liner and wicking into the plywood at the screw holes. My dorades never had the drain holes drilled through to let water out by the factory so it was a mess as well. The good news though is that it's all repairable, the plywood in the cabin side is not really structural, just there to act as a spacer between F/G layers as there really isn't much to support due to the radius on the cabin top and at the deck for the cabin sides. Glad yours was not too bad Jim!Tom

 

[Steve Humenick]

Wet to the core

You may want to check the condition of the plywood core around the dorades. If you can get your hands on a moisture meter great, if not then drill a couple of 1/4" holes about 1/2" deep in the non skid and see what comes up. Dark brown and wet bad, light tan and dry good. If all OK then just fill the holes with epoxy and touch up the paint for a near invisible repair.  I also had the dorade rot problem, which leaked into the core and completely rotted it out from behind the hatch to the staysail track. Wound up cutting the outer skin off which came off easy since no plywood was left for it to bond to. Replaced the core with vinyl foam board and epoxied the whole thing back together last weekend, just need to glass tape the seams, sand and paint the cabin. All this along with replacing the ports with NFM stainless. A bit luckier there since only one port core was rotted even though all were wet.BTW for those doing NFM ports use 1-1/4" oval head screws in the main cabin 7x15's and 1" screws for the 5x12's.