A27 Pilothouse / Deck Joint

[Ambler27FC]

I have an '89 A27. Preparing to remove the wood trim between the pilot-house and deck - just below pilot-house windows - and fiberglass over the joint. I was curious if anyone had experience with removing the wood trim and what I will find underneath?

Currently repairing the hull to deck joint and fiber glassing over this as well. This is a time-consuming and risky thing that I would not report on until I know it works (3 years and 20 dock hits from now). All of this is to address water leaks after the rain. Windows were the first suspect and have already been addressed.

[Sprig1]

Hi Ambler. I fiberglassed my pilot house to deck joint. I had a 84 fc. Hopefully yours is built better than mine was. When I took the wood trim off I was horrified. It looked like maybe six screws holding the pilot house on. With a little caulk trying to seal a huge gap. I’m surprised it didn’t blow off. The water was pouring in. Also it was rotted out under the windows from them leaking. I did much the same steps as you are doing with your deck hull joint. I’m guessing. It was one of the better things I did get rid of the wood trim. Less to take care of and sealed it up tight.
One of the bad things I did on my boat and I’m ashamed of the mistake is I used 3m 4000uv what a mistake to seal things up. It totally failed. I was reading about it this year and was horrified. It answered a lot of questions of what I was seeing. There should have been a class action lawsuit against 3m.
Let me know if you have any questions. It looks like it should be a pretty easy project for you after all the others you have done.

[Ambler27FC]

Thanks Sprig1! DCatSea posted pictures of his seam uncovered and it looked pretty good - it is interesting that yours was so bad. I suppose I will just have to deal with whatever I find. It sounds like fiberglass will be a structural improvement. Thinking I will replace any screws and glass over them so that it is guaranteed to be better than the factory design. Repaired the cockpit windows two years ago and glad I did: the exposed balsa core had rotted, as it would.

I had a similar experience with caulk on this joint. Some miracle product from the boat store that failed in 3 months. It increased my appreciation for butyl tape - when you can use it.

Thanks again for the insight. Suspect this will be an easy effort after the hull/deck joint. A desire to keep 3 oz of water out of the cockpit after a good rain has cascaded into 3 months of hard work, but it should increase the life of the boat. If the forward bilge pump area stays dry this summer I will do a little dance on the deck in the middle of the bay when nobody is looking.

[tego]

Ambler, I removed the teak trim from around my pilothouse where it met the cabin top and found that it was much improved over the early wheelhouses. Mine is an '87 and it had a glass flange all around the wheelhouse, about 3/4" wide and was screwed to the cabintop about every 6' and used 5200 as a sealant under the flange. Terry Compton joined Albin around that time and designed some major improvements in their construction techniques. I listed several improvements earlier-on on this forum. My boat hasn't leaked a drop after I resealed my portlites and handrails six or seven years ago. The hull-deck joint didn't change though, but mine is sealed with 5200. I don't know what they used before '87 but I know a lot of them leaked pretty badly. Ben "87 27FC hull #302

[WillieC]

Could you post a link to DCatSea’s repair project? I may need to address this issue on the new boat.

Thanks!

[Ambler27FC]

WillieC, I don't know how to create that link, but check out the Albin Maintenance section under a post called "Bottom Paint" - very recent parallel thread. Not sure how relevant it will be to your situation, but interesting how production boats can vary.

[Ambler27FC]

Tego - hope I find what you are describing. The forward handrails and bow-rail are the last through-decks left before I move to the interior. Mine is a 1989, but I don't want to take anything for granted. The aft deck connections for the stainless bow rail are also suspect. I haven't seen any definitive descriptions in these posts, but I suspect embedded anchor nuts or blind screws.

[tego]

Ambler, Most are embedded anchor nuts for the rails. Ben

[Ambler27FC]

After 4 months' work, a couple cruises, and several significant rains I can report bone-dry bilges for the first time in 6 years of ownership! That forward bilge area always collected a little water after a rain. I can't say I found the water leak path - water leaks are insidious - but it turns out that preventing every possible path will work. I removed and repaired the core around the ports two years ago. Fiber glassing over the hull-to-deck seam and pilot-house to deck seam got the result.

It is known that the ports are always the prime suspect, but after that I would target the pilot-house to deck joint. My boat was better than some, but I still found some significant gaps. On the surface everything looked good.
After pulling up the trim boards I imagine there are allot of things a person could do to fix a leak short of fiber glassing. But if you were going to paint it was a 3-day job so go for it.

Fiber glassing over the hull-to-deck joint was a much bigger job (3.5 of the 4 months), and I wouldn't recommend to anyone that isn't offended by 12oz of rainwater in the bilge after a rain. There were definitely leaks, but I couldn't spot any obvious culprits. I comfort myself with knowing that there are no more gel-coat cracks (having removed all of the gel-coat) and the joint is 8x stronger than it was.