J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment Recoring from interior

I know this topic has been covered a bit, but I spent last weekend in my anchor locker and I'll be spending much of this weekend in the same place. So, I thought I'd hit this horse one more time and reiterate the importance of properly sealing hardware.

I knew about these spots when I bought the boat last year, but I've waited until now to repair them. A good section of the foredeck forward of the bulkhead needed to be replaced, as did a smaller section near the anchor locker. The foredeck was inundated with water from a deck plate and the waste pumpout fitting. The area around the anchor locker was damaged by the hinge screws.

Here's the cross section of deck with the deck plate removed:



I did this from below so as not to ruin the deck finish. Here's the first cut:


Here's the exposed core with the lower skin removed. Note the two pieces of wood right in the middle of the deck. This came from the factory as there was no indication of a previous repair in this area. An old foredeck cleat had two fasters through the wood (see the epoxy plugs), but the other two were through regular balsa. It's strange and I'd love to why these two pieces are here. Did TPI run out of balsa?


I don't have any photos showing the new core exposed as I laid up the new core and replaced the lower skin in the same operation. I wasn't about to touch my camera. So, the two photos below show the lower skins replaced. In the anchor locker photo, I put that brace back for the picture. There were three braces in place while the epoxy cured.





Since these photos, I've water washed the repair to remove amine blush, sanded the area, and solvent washed it.

This weekend, I'm going to grind the seam back several inches on each side and reinforce with two layers of 10 oz fiberglass tape. Eventually, I'll repaint both lockers with Bilgekote, but that will be done later.

This work could have easily been avoided if the core was isolated from these fittings with thickened epoxy. Before the new hardware is installed, all fasteners or through-deck hardware will pass through the epoxy, not the new balsa.



[This message has been edited by Jason King (edited 04-25-2008).]

Jason,

Thanks for sharing. I feel your pain.

The areas of concern and repair for hull #87 was limited to the chain plates, one #3 track, behind each lazzarette cover and the anchor cover.

A few simple maintenance steps will keep the boat dryer and faster.

David Erwin

[This message has been edited by David Erwin (edited 04-25-2008).]

I had some very similar issues on Koesh several years ago, replacing a lot of the starboard side of the foredeck. Digging into it I found a solid wood (fir?) stringer running the length of the center of the foredeck through which my (single) bow cleat and the spin pole foreguy were fastened. The wood was undamaged due to epoxy encapsulation during layup. Sounds like TPI had a lot of variants on their core process.