Right here's another one for you...

What it shows is the inside of the hull under the mast. The plywood blocks used to attach the rack ends to the hull have gone horribly wet and are falling apart. The block with the kicker bolt in it is from what i can feel not much better but i can't get any pictures to prove it. So any ideas for the best way to get the horrible stuff out and how to replace it?

Ok heres some more picturrs of the mast post, I think the long piece of wood is ok, but the bottom piece is very damp.

sorry it's fuzzy but i was just waving the camera around inside the hull hoping.

yes the kicker bolt has been re-done once already, that was why i had the camera in the hull. I refitted the kicker bolt earlier in the summer when it went bang after a race. However the holes in the hull had worn a lot so it wasnt a very good seal. I was trying to estabilsh what was behind it so i could come up with a plan to make a better job of the repair.

I shall now get on the phone to LDC.

Mike,

Just offering a glass-half-full view; could the ply just be damp and peeling on the outer layer rather than rotten all the way through? Your boat hasn't fallen apart so it's probably OK, and perhaps not worth spending a fortune cutting the boat open and repairing it potentially for no reason.

I'd get the boat in a garage with a heater and dehumidifier and get the boat fully dried out, and concentrate on getting it water tight to stop any further problems and then see how it goes.

I'm working very hard on the watertight thing at the moment, that's the reason I've come across this. I called LDC today and they came up with what seems like a very sensible suggestion to get the wood off and replace it without making huge holes in any part of the boat.

First mark up very carefully where all the current fittings are and how big and where the lumps of ply inside the hull are. Next carefully use a dremnel to get the glass fibre out from around the lumps of wood, but leaving some glass in where the wood is. Now use a large punch and a hammer to remove the old ply from the inside of the hull, then collect the pieces from inside the hull. After that it should be just a case of making up new ply/foam blocks to replace the old ones, position them, and fix them in place with epoxy and string through the hull until the epoxy sets. Finally, rebuild the holes around the edges of the wood that i took off earlier and replace the fittings.

How does that sound to you lot?

a lot of people get carried away with how difficult they think cutting a big hole in a boat and repairing it is. Best thing to do is just not be shy, but make sure you tilt the jig-saw blade the correct way or you will have issues.

I'm guessing that when you spoke to LDC that advice will have come from miller, and i would trust what he says to do. When you replace the blocks of wood, it is a good idea to paint them in resin, therefore sealing them from any water which may get into the boat and preventing any rotting.

personally, i would just cut a big hole out so i could get in there, get rid of all the dead wood and replace it all, then do the hole repair.

cut out your shape, easiest shape is a circle in my opinion. you need to tilt the blade so that when you have cut the shape out you can sit it back over the whole. (from the top of the blade to the bottom, the blade points towards the centre of the whole).Its best to draw a circle first and then make some marks on it so you know which orientation if fits back on.

Then do your repair work in the inside of the hull.

And to attach the cut out shape back, mix up a thick epoxy bog mix (bubbles, silica, microfibres), and apply a good amount to the edges of the shape, and the hole. Then position the shape into the hole and push down gently so the mix oozes out, trying all the time to get the shape in the exact correct place so it is fair with the hull. Let this mix go off fully.Use a long straight edge to assist with this.

Then you will need to grind the gel-coat and a small bit of laminate away around the join, you need to be carefull you dont go into the core. Probably looking at a 40mm with of ground back area all the way around the join. You will then need to put 2 layers of glass over the area(only wet out the bits in the ground off area though!!), make sure this is consolidated well, and then peel ply over the top, if you have the facilities then vac this stage down.

When that has gone off you need to sand the laminate so it is nice and fair and slightly below the height of the rest of the hull. Once you are happy with the shaping, it is the gelling stage. Providing all the previous stages went well the gel should be pretty easy. Apply the gel to the ground back circle (may need a couple of layers), and finish off by sanding through the grades and polishing.

Hope this helped

You could cut the hole and do the repair yourself to keep the cost down but then get LDC to do an invisible repair

Just an update, I've been held up by having to do revision for exams but I've finally got most of the old manky ply wood out the inside of the hull (no big hole in the foredeck yet). And it was very old manky plywood, I put a great big lump of wood just inside the hole i made and hit it with a lump hammer and it went straight through the ply. Now I'm trying to get the last little bits of wood unstuck so I can fit the new lumps of hardwood and put the glass fibre back on.

Mike,

Just a thought, from experience I would suggest that your hardwood should be well epoxied (first) and I wouldn't suggest mahogony (apparently it doesn't like fresh water...)

Colin

Thanks, I have some old window frame which I am going to use, I haven't got a clue what tree it came from but I'm sure it will be fine once it's properly coated in epoxy. (I sail on the sea anyway and don't intend to spend long periods of time puddle sailing in the near future anyway)

do a  little research.... some hardwoods are oily, so I've a  feeling epoxy may not stick so well to it....   

.. worth looking up  "west" or '"SP" epoxy websites. one of them's  got a load of  info.

Hmmm the plan has changed again now anyway. Due to the shape of the inside of the hull where im trying to fix the wood, it is really hard to cut it to the right shape. So i have decided to go for either a piece of sheet metal (probably stainless steel but aluminium if I can get it) glued on the back and then bolt through it. Failing this I will make up some thick glass laminate, with lots of bog between it and the hull, and try to screw through this. I am already going for the sheet steel or aluminium approach to back the kicker bolt with once I've got the old wood off that so this is probably what I'll do here as well.

I'll just have to be careful about disimilar metal corrosion i suppose.