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Forward deck hatch -- the dreaded soggy wood

9K views 15 replies 10 participants last post by  sailingdog 
#1 ·
I've been working on my new (used) Catalina 22 that I bought in February. I've been chasing down 3 cabin leaks and killed off 2 of the three at the source (outside the deck under fittings). The last one I have is the biggest one unfortunately. I've been trying to find it after it rains and still chasing it. It leaves a puddle on the aft port set just left of the cabin entry door. The water is kind of "tea" colored. I resealed the stanchions, and the forward bow railing on that side (sorry, I don't have the official name, but you know what I mean!) I still have to seal the other three posts on that still.
Anyway, looking at the forward hatch above the v-berth, I found it was wet along the port side edge (one of he previous owners had done some repairs there, which was kind of falling apart). I took the hatch off and scraped off some of the old sealant and was able to peek in the gap between the ceiling and the edge of the hatch. Prying it open with a screwdriver and peeking in, I saw - yes - the DREADED soggy plywood! UGH!
tapping around the deck with a hammer, I seem to have tracked it to the edge of the deck mostly on the port side, but there is a spot on the starboard side near the hatch also. I did a temporary seal around the hatch with some tub caulk just to seal it from more water, but I still have to deal with this now. I think this is where the water leak came from, then drained along the ceiling panel to the rear of the boat where it could then spill out onto the seat.

I'm sure this is common, but I'm kind of worried. Any ideas what I should do now? Forget it and seal it? Tear the boat apart to replace the plywood? Dry it out somehow? Patch it? <*sigh*> :(

Tom
Catalina 22 #880 1971
 
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#2 ·
Finding Leaks the easy way

After 20 years of trying to locate and eliminate leaks, we put a blower on top of the forward hatch and pressurized the boat...plugged up the major exhaust points like dorades, etc. Then from the outside, with a mop, we put soapy water all around the deck. The leaks were obvious...mostly in the cap rail which we grouted out an re-bed. But we also found leaks in the windows, etc. This is by far the best way to find leaks and not that hard to do.

Moe

Crishelle
Chris Craft Apache 37
1967
 
#3 ·
Leaks

Yeah, that is probably one of the next steps I need to try. I'm pretty sure a lot of water is coming from this hatch though. The water that puddles in the back is kind of a brownish "tea" color. I figure the soggy wood is causing that - and I have found some soggy wood now@ :(

mgiguere said:
After 20 years of trying to locate and eliminate leaks, we put a blower on top of the forward hatch and pressurized the boat...plugged up the major exhaust points like dorades, etc. Then from the outside, with a mop, we put soapy water all around the deck. The leaks were obvious...mostly in the cap rail which we grouted out an re-bed. But we also found leaks in the windows, etc. This is by far the best way to find leaks and not that hard to do.

Moe

Crishelle
Chris Craft Apache 37
1967
 
#4 ·
Tom, you really need to get the rotted wood out of there. I've heard of people cutting the deck laminations carefully and peeling them off so they can reuse them later, others replace the core and add new deck laminations and then refinish the deck. I sounds like the areas where your deck is penetrated are not sealed properly with thickened epoxy. That probably means removing all deck fixtures and sealing the core and rebedding the deck hardware, after removing all wet and rotted core. A very large job.
 
#5 ·
Deck slicing

DeepFrz said:
Tom, you really need to get the rotted wood out of there. I've heard of people cutting the deck laminations carefully and peeling them off so they can reuse them later, others replace the core and add new deck laminations and then refinish the deck. I sounds like the areas where your deck is penetrated are not sealed properly with thickened epoxy. That probably means removing all deck fixtures and sealing the core and rebedding the deck hardware, after removing all wet and rotted core. A very large job.
Yeah, I've been reading a bunch of stuff on the internet about this. Seems that I can somehow outline the wet part, overlap to the dry part, cut out a neat chunk replace the insides and put it all together again.

I just wonder how to deal with the non-slip deck stuff to blend it together again after putting it back on. It's not really rough stuff, but rather smooth bumps, so that may be an advantage, but maybe not. The deck does seem firm, but I'm just concerned that it will just get worse over time.

Tom
 
#6 ·
I don't know how far back the rot or wet wood goes. But it may be possible to remove the wet/rotten plywood and put thicken epoxy back between the fibeglass panels. You may want to try and dry out the area before injecting epoxy into it. A heat gun may work. After that sets up you want to rebed the hatch using silaflex or 3m 4200.
 
#8 ·
If the core is wet but not rotten, then you can drill a series of holes over the wet area to allow it to drain and dry out. Then you can inject epoxy into the same holes and allow it to cure... which will solve your problem without having to cut away the laminate.

However, if the core is rotten... mushy and no longer able to serve its function, then you will have to cut away the skin and remove the rottten core, and replace it with a new piece.

You can do this from either the top or the bottom... doing it from the top is generally easier, but requires that you take more time to repair/replace the non-skid.

Doing it from the bottom would leave the deck's non-skid surface intact, but is a bit more difficult to do since you're fighting gravity. If you decide to do it from the underside, and have fairly good access to the area, you can do it in two stages... the first is removing the laminate and rotten core and laminating an new core to the upper laminate. Then the second stage would be to laminate a new inner skin. This makes it a bit easier than trying to do it all at once. :D

BTW, you should really remove and re-bed most of the deck hardware and pot all the holes with thickened epoxy if you do this repair, as that will help prevent having to do this type of repair a second time. :)
 
#10 · (Edited)
If you end up having to recore the deck... It is very difficult to refinish the top and make it look nice. It will end up looking different from the rest of the boat - regardless of how careful you are.

Repairing it from the underside can be pretty soul-destroying...messy and you're working in very cramped quarters.

My suggestion would be to do it from the top. It will be much quicker. When you have finished, sand the entire deck smooth - and then apply the Vetus non-skid (or similar product) everywhere that you currently have a non-skid surface. There are a couple of Catalina 30's at my marina - side by side funnily enough - that have done this and it looks very good.

It will seem expensive when you first consider it, but in the long run it's not going to be too much more than you'll spend on various products trying to get a decent finish. You can even do it in stages.

If you ever decide you want to sell the boat, and if it has a poorly finished deck repair...you're going to get zilch for it.
 
#11 ·
Sailormann said:
If you end up having to recore the deck... It is very difficult to refinish the top and make it look nice. It will end up looking different from the rest of the boat - regardless of how careful you are.

Repairing it from the underside can be pretty soul-destroying...messy and you're working in very cramped quarters.
For a small area, it isn't too bad to do... provided you have decent access. Since he's talking about the area around a hatch IIRC, the access should be fairly decent.

My suggestion would be to do it from the top. It will be much quicker. When you have finished, sand the entire deck smooth - and then apply the Vetus non-skid (or similar product) everywhere that you currently have a non-skid surface. There are a couple of Catalina 30's at my marina - side by side funnily enough - that have done this and it looks very good.

It will seem expensive when you first consider it, but in the long run it's not going to be too much more than you'll spend on various products trying to get a decent finish. You can even do it in stages.
Yes, several friends have re-done the core on their boats and have gone with Tredmaster or something similar... looks quite nice IMHO, but a bit pricey.

If you ever decide you want to sell the boat, and if it has a poorly finished deck repair...you're going to get zilch for it.
No kidding.
 
#12 ·
It's a 35 year old boat worth a grand or two. You don't want to go nuts pouring a lot of money into her. Sound out the extent of the rot with a plastic hammer tapping on the deck. If the bad areas is more than a few inches...Mark off the extent with masking tape and then use a roto-tool to cut out the deck section. Cut out the bad wood and insert good wood and epoxy it back in place. Then put the glass back on and epoxy that in place as well. Fill in the cut out grooves and do the gelcoat repairs and go sailing.

If the bad area is only a small patch...just drill a few holes in the top of the deck and squirt in lots of epoxy. Gel coat the holes and go sailing!
 
#14 ·
Ok this is the method I think might work for you without taking off the top layer of skin. What you want to do as others have mentioned is sound out the area. Draw a large circle where your mallet sounds dull as there is probably delamination and/or wet nasty plywood under there. Now starting from the middle of the circlish figure drill a small pilot whole with at stopper on the drill so you don't drill down too far that you put a whole in the cabin. Take the drill out see if its wet. Do this all the way in the circle. You can now try to let it dry with heat gun, rubbing alcohol (combines with the water in the wood then when it dries up takes water with it, acetone(same as alcohol only flamable). Now for each of the holes put some screws in all the holes except two. Now take a nail and bend it at a 90 degree angle. Put one side in your hand drill. Slip the other side in the hole. Spin slowly meanwhile take a shop vac and place it over the 2nd hole (the only ohter one that doens't have a screw in it. While the nail spins it will remove all the wet **** and the vac will pull it out. Do this wiht ever hole keeping only two open at a time. Now let it sit and dry again in the sun for few days. Now take some epoxy and inject it into the holes starting with (i think) the highest point first (btw remove all the screws b4 doing this. Fill all the holes in a sequential order and then place tape or wax paper with a few bricks over the section. Let dry, then repaint. If you want to go the cheap way mix some of these polymer balls in the paint to get a non skid else by some non skid. Let me know how it worked out for you. Good luck. (sorry for the long post)
 
#15 ·
I'm going through this exact same situation with my 1980 Hunter 37. The P.O. did a half-a#$ rebuild job of the deck, amazingly he used virtually no sealant and the wood has become soggy (though thankfully intact) over a large section of the deck from window and hardware leaks. I used the method mentioned above and drilled so many holes in the deck that it truly terrified me! After injecting epoxy in a 2'x5' section, i can say that it works marvelous! I've drilled some test holes between my injection holes and found that the epoxy penetrated and stiffened the wood quite nicely. It even took care of a couple of random squeaks. Good luck, it's a major job but much more time consuming than anything. Of course i have to repaint the deck and non-skid anyway, so surface damage didn't bother me that much.
 
#16 ·
BlackPearl—

Generally, if the area is larger than 1'x1' or so, it is a far better idea to re-core the area, rather than drill and inject epoxy.
 
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