Catalina 27 through hulls

[cruiseco]

Through hull question:

I'm buying a 75 Catalina 27. The last thing to do was to haul it, power wash the hull and do an inspection. There's no "Catalina Smile", we only found one small (about half the size of a dime) blister, but the bottom paint is about gone.

My plan is bottom paint plus replace the through hulls. The previous owner had removed the head and holding tank which I'm fine with -- a porta-potti will be fine. I was going to have the yard replace the head intake and discharge through hulls and valves then plug them off.

The yard guy suggested I consider filling and glassing them over. It will be less expensive, I'll have two fewer holes in the hull, and he tells me that if, in the future, I or the next owner want to re-install a head it's no big deal to drill out the filled/glassed area and put it back to original. This sounds like a good way to go to me. Is there anything I', overlooking here?

[Wayne25]

Well, I've never glassed over a through hull, but I've read the correct way to do it. I must say that replacing the through hull seems much easier ( and therefore cheaper). Plus you may find a need for a through hull in the future and have one at the ready.

[cruiseco]

Sorry, I should have been more thorough. Glassing over the through hulls will be free. I managed to talk the yard into throwing that in with the prep work for the bottom paint job. It's a buyer's market for this kind of work -- the yard looks about half as full as a year or so ago. They're not desperate but they're apparently willing to offer some "freebies" to get some work that many others are putting off.

If I replace the through hulls I'll also be replacing the 30+ year old bronze valves so I figure off the top of my head maybe $250 - $300 in parts. Obviously, if the head is later re-installed this is not a true savings -- the cost has just been kicked down the road but it's $300 I'd prefer to put toward the cost of re-doing the rigging next. But if there's some reason (other than possibly undoing it at a later date) why this is a truly bad idea I'd like to know now while I can still change my mind. I can't think of any but I always open to hearing reasons why I'm wrong.