J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment what to look for

Brand new to the J 30

What do you want to look for in a J 30. What are some of the recurrent problems. I have never dealt with cored hulls before and I must confess to some trepidation in taking on a 20 year old hull.

HJ

Check the transom around the exhaust. From what I've seen on this board, this is the one place where water damage to the hull core is most likely to start. If it happens, it is localized to starboard because the hull was made in two halves and glassed down the middle.

A couple of other areas to look at include: The core under the icebox. If the drain hose gets leaky, and/or too much condensation water gets trapped, you can get interesting water infiltration under the box. Some folks have had problems in patches near the lifeline stations, generally localized. You basically want to hit the whole hull with a moisture meter, ideally after its been out of the water for a little while, to make sure you're really checking for wet core.

Plenty of quite dry boats out there; they do require care and attention, but when given, they respond well.

- David

Most older fiberglass boats with plywood cored decks tapping will pickup water problems instantly, does this work for the balsa cored hulls?

I'd imagine so.

At the boat yard, I saw another boat owner used a stud finder on his deck. Wet core read like a stud; dry core read like no stud. He was able to draw a contour around a leaky hatch, and test holes he drilled confirmed that the core inside the holes was wet, outside the holes was dry.

My boat had issues around the anchor locker, chainplates and halyard stoppers, mostly due to cavalier maintenance of bedding. After fixing the issues, I drilled all holes oversize and installed phenolic bushings to isolate the core from future leaks. My nonskid was pretty much shot, so we did the repairs from the top and repainted with Interlux mix-in nonskid, wrapping around the radius on the cabintop. It's a little agressive on knees when buoy racing, but sure gives nice footing offshore!