Stiffening up a soft deck?

[StinkBug]

Well I went and picked up another boat tonight, a 1972 Capri Cyclone 13. Got it in the shop and it's in a bit worse shape than I realized. I got to the owners place as the sun was goin down so it's mostly my fault. Thankfully I paid VERY little for it. The gel coat has a ton of cracks in it (which I did notice), and the deck is fairly soft in a number of places (which I didn't). The mast step, centerboard slot, hull and deck edges are all pretty solid, but some of the cockpit floor, deck forward of the mast, and the sides where you sit all have some flex to them. Looking inside it appears they used some kinda foam between layers of glass to thicken up the decks and make them stiffer, and in the soft areas the glass on the inside seems to have lost its bond with the foam and gotten pretty dried out. I'm guessing simply from 38 years of people sitting or stepping on it and flexing it back and forth, possibly combined with some moisture.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to stiffen things back up? The cloth inside is pretty dried out and I'm wondering if I could just soak the inside in resin and get things to bond together again. I'm not planning on doing any real serious sailing on this boat, I mainly got it as a beater to teach my friends on and let them sail, as I also have a Capri 13 that's 25 years newer for me to sail hard.

Thanks!
Dallas

[AllThumbs]

I would say if it isn't wet, you could inject epoxy. I doubt it's dry though.

[StinkBug]

It's actually VERY dry. The boat hasn't seen water in years. I dug around in it and actually cut a small piece out of the cloth and foam on the under side of the deck and it's dry as a bone, just completely detached from the deck above. I'm thinking of just removing all the delaminated stuff, adding a fresh layer of glass and using some wood to glass in some ribs for reinforcement.

[mitchbrown]

drill some holes and inject some penetrating epoxy. If it doesn't work you can always cut it apart and fix it the hard way.

Mitch