Just another leaky deck story

[mike66]

We purchased a beautiful boat with no interior water damage. This winter, water got by the shrink wrap and pooled forward of the scuppers. Ice heaves etc. caused a lot of water to seep into the aft cabin and damage the paneling just forward of the rear window port side. Still leaks when it rains, so I guess expansion from being wet isn't going to help. I know a lot has been posted about leaks, but I'm just venting. Thinking of injecting CPES (Rot Doctor) in the screw holes as a temp fix and removing the teak & replacing with fiberglass the section of decking from the door to the aft scupper. This would leave teak forward and aft with fiberglass midships. Comments?

[seblyte]

Hi, I think I can help. You have 2 definate areas of water ingress in the area you have described. The first and worst is the scuppers themselves. They are just cheap fibreglass sleeves pushed through from the outside of the hull. When these fail water just pours into the boat. Secondly and even more annoying is that I found 4 holes drilled into the deck for no good reason and water seeps through the teak and down through these holes. You will have to remove the panelling and seal these and you will have to replace the scupper tubes. There is no way round it. S.

[mike66]

Plus it seems my scuppers are a little too far aft and allow water to pool in that area between the door and the more forward scupper. I was thinking of adding another right at that low spot. Is there anyway good way to remove the panelling or do I just go at it. It seems ruined in that section anyway.

[seblyte]

Hi, the panelling you need to remove is in the aft cabin. It will have trim holding it it and be nailed to some batons fixed to the hull. Remove the trim and there will be a gap all around. I'm afraid when I did it I just put in a crow bar and eased it our. There was damage to the panelling but mine was also water damaged so I decided to replace it. There will also be some plywood fixed to the underside of the deck. This also needs to come out. When this is clear you will see the fibreglass deck and this slopes away and in the recess you will see the scupper tubes. Check the deck for these weird holes, it might just have been a mistake on my boat. I sealed mine with epoxy paste. You will see also see the scuppers passing therough the outside skin into the inside skin, up above. You will probably see the water damage course as well, staining the hull walls. I built solid tiunnels through the hull using expansion foam to create a structure betwen the 2 walls and then glassed the aperture. I then made new bronze scuppers, made up in a workshop. We made them so they pushed through the hull from the INSIDE and a fixing plate holding the scuppers in place was glued to the outside using a strong adhesive. This meant that there were no holes drilled through the hull for future water ingress. One more point, we have a teak deck so we had to lift the planks close to the hull to make sure we got proper access and a good seal. A tricky job and don't beat yourself up if you split a plank. We lifted 4 planks for access and managed to save all but a 20" section. We just cut a neat patch and bedded it in. It looks fine. One note on lifting the planks, scrape out the caulking (I used a small screw driver and lifted the caulking out by running the screw driver under the caulking), drill out the plugs and remove the screws, then using 2 chisels ease the planks up, leapfrogging with the chisels. The glue will gradually give way under this pressure but don't force it otherwise the planks will just split. The job took me 10 hard days so don't feel depressed, just take it slowly and it will work out. Good luck. Sebastian

[mike66]

Thanks for the advice. I hope to have alot of time to do this as the summer rolls on. I guess it won't look any worse than our house did while we were redoing it.....keep you posted if I find anything interesting.
Mike

[bccanucker]

Sebastion: Do you have any pictures of what you are describing?
Love to see them if you do.

[caseylynn]

Sebastion I would be interested in buying your DVD's of the restoration process. Thanks Caseylynn.