Velocity Girl is in the transom rebuilding stage. Thanks to Bill and several others on the forum I have tackled the complete re-coring of the transom, the starboard side and about 6 feet of the bottom. Thanks to the design of the starboard side I had some major moisture issues. It is amazing how heavy wet Balsa is. I have one more question for the experts: Has anyone cut the inner liner that covers the secondary bilge behind the engine compartment to get all the way to the end of the coring at the center of the boat. Does that have any structural value? I was going to cut it with a beveled edge so I can fit it in and glass it back together when I am done with coring.
Some advice to anyone who might try this with their own boats...I installed all the balsa in sections and created thickened epoxy breaks at various points to isolate the balsa into smaller sections. I thought that this would be a great way to limit any damage in the future to smaller areas and prevent boat-wide migration. It may add slightly more weight, but since I plan to keep the boat for a long time I want to prevent future damage. I hope to have some pics soon. The biggest challenge was getting good compression and adhesion of the balsa on the transom. I ended up creating oak plywood blanks and drove bolts through with big fender washers on both sides to create good pressure. It seems to have worked very well.
Thanks for all the help folks!
Canaan
Velocity Girl 278
