Re-Bedding Genoa tracks

[justified]

Well one of my winter projects is to remove and rebed the genoa tracks that are leaking. What is the best method for re bedding / sealing them. The boat is a 1985 Newport 33 and they are in a recess in the deck, there are drains/ opening at the ends of the recesses to let water out. Is this a common problem?

Peter
Justified

[mikehoyt]

Peter

Remove them and then reinstall with sealant of choice. Butyl rubber or 3M4200 or something along those lines. I used 4200 but I suspect that many would suggest butyl much better.

Check for water intrusion around the bolt holes. if the deck was cored in this area you may have water getting into the core of your deck. Last year when I rebedded my genoa tracks I overdrilled each hole, filled with thickened epoxy, redrilled the original sized hole and then rebedded the tracks. This way even if they do leak in future no moisture will get into the deck's core.

Mike

[KeelHaulin]

Be careful; be sure you can find replacement track that will fit if the original track is too badly corroded at the bolt holes. Sometimes the corrosion is so bad the bolts literally weld themselves to the track; which makes re-bedding impractical if the bolts get damaged while pulling it off of the deck. So measure the track width/thickness, hole spacing, and pin diameter to be sure you can find a good replacement; then be ready to buy them if you need.

[sailingdog]

Butyl rubber tape is the way to go for sealant.

[josrulz]

Two part answer, sort of:

1) In response to justified, I agree with the butyl tape answers above. That's what I'll be using for sealant when I do this project myself.

2) Because I'm looking at doing the same project this winter, I have an additional question (that may also help justified). In addition to mikehoyt, has anyone else potted all the holes? I don't know for sure there's core around my genoa tracks, but I'm just making an assumption that there is because it's likely.

My question for mikehoyt, and anyone else who's done this--was there any particular process that worked well for you to pot so many bolt holes at once?

Thanks,
J

[Pneumatic]

Check out this article.

Sealing Deck Penetrations to Prevent Core Rot Photo Gallery by Compass Marine at pbase.com

I recently used this method to pot all of the deck penetrations. Over one hundred holes.
I would suggest that you use a drop cloth other wise you'll be trying to clean epoxy off your deck.

Martin

[arf145]

Jos, I'm rebedding one of my tracks right now. At the risk of being chastized by others, I'll admit that I'm not potting all the holes. All 25 bolt holes are through core, so in a perfect world I'd be potting them, and was prepared to do so. But as things stand, I'm doing maybe 14 or 15 of them. Why? Access, or lack thereof. Most of the holes had fairly eaxy access after removing various interior chases, and whatnot, but the last 10 or so have a 1inch access hole in the fiberglass liner in the boat, and I have found that fiddling around with getting tape up in there to allow me to pour epoxy is just too too difficult.

So I'll just chamfer those holes and figure that the O ring effect and the butyl will continue to keep them dry. As far as the potted holes, I just do them like an assembly line, doing the same operation on all holes before going on to the next step: drill out all holes 1/16" larger, grind out balsa with nifty high speed metal grinder on cordless Dremel, clean out all holes with vacuum, tape all, then pot with thickened epoxy.

Tom