J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment A River Runs Through It

Here are a couple of images after I removed the core in the transom around the exhaust. What I like to use for core removal in a small area like this is a sharp 1/4" wide chisel. It usually easily penetrates the end grain and lets you pare away by hand only little bits with very little effort. It took only a few minutes to remove this area. Likely though it will take days to dry the glass and I wouldn't be surprised if I have to use some heat too.

I have encountered some other areas where the balsa was really wet, but nothing like this area. This was also the 1st area that the balsa had gone black and I suspect that was because this area being out of the water could get much warmer to speed up the rot.

The area behind the gudgeon appears to be foam. This is the 2nd time I have found foam core in this boat. The first time I thought it might have been a repair area. Was foam used in some key areas on these boats?