Soft spot in the deck

Lugnut · 24 June 2008, 14:12

Yesterday while getting my depth sounder working I found a soft spot in the middle of the deck. Just walking around on the deck and felt a "give" after prodding with my foot and paying attention it looks to be near the center, and measures about 12-14 inches in an oblong shape. I'm not happy.

I doubt I'm up to the task of performing this repair on my own and I suspect, no matter what I guess the cost for this repair to be, it will cost twice as much in reality.

Lugnut · 25 June 2008, 01:06

I recall seeing pics here of people replacing decks on their ribs but can't find the threads now. Can somebody point me in a direction?

Chuck

Stoo · 25 June 2008, 01:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lugnut

... it will cost twice as much in reality.

.. if you're lucky, that's al it wil be! All the same, a friend had a similar problem. He had it repaired and I don't think it was a huge bill... $1500 CDN comes to mind. Cosmetically, it wasn't perfect, but close enough...

On the upside, it could have been worse. You could have found a soft spot in your head!

Lugnut · 25 June 2008, 02:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stoo

.. if you're lucky, that's al it wil be! All the same, a friend had a similar problem. He had it repaired and I don't think it was a huge bill... $1500 CDN comes to mind. Cosmetically, it wasn't perfect, but close enough...

On the upside, it could have been worse. You could have found a soft spot in your head!

That's steep but not so bad I suppose. Something I'm wondering now is what kind of mods (if any) would be beneficial when the deck is replaced. Threaded inserts for holding things down? A hatch or two? Larger fuel tank? I don't know.

I've been accused of such in the past. LoL!

Mark Halliday · 25 June 2008, 09:36

Have a look at mine here.

http://www.rib.net/forum/showthread.php?t=24644

Lugnut · 25 June 2008, 12:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark Halliday

Have a look at mine here.

http://www.rib.net/forum/showthread.php?t=24644

Thank you Mark! Looks like a daunting task indeed.

What's the process to re-install a deck once you've chain drilled the old one and removed all the rotted bits?

jyasaki · 25 June 2008, 15:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lugnut

Yesterday while getting my depth sounder working I found a soft spot in the middle of the deck.

That's a drag.

As to my friends A19, they acquired the boat from a woman who had it in Hawaii (I think it was her late husbands), and had shipped it back to the mainland. Found the thing on Craigslist, I think.

Although it had been lightly used, we started noticing the motor flexing a bit under power. Turned out that the engine mounting bolts had not been sealed, and the coring in the transom was rotted (I saw pictures after opening it up - not a scrap of solid wood left inside.) Somewhere around $2K later, they had a solid resin transom (chainsaw it open, remove wood pulp, clean it up, and pour in some kind of epoxy resin, re-glass and gelcoat the exterior.)

After the repair, things are good. I'ts been about 2 years now, and no further surprises.

Hopefully, your repair won't be too expensive or too involved.

Best of luck;

jky

Mark Halliday · 25 June 2008, 15:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lugnut

Thank you Mark! Looks like a daunting task indeed.

What's the process to re-install a deck once you've chain drilled the old one and removed all the rotted bits?

It has saved me some fuel.

The hard part is knowing where to stop. I keep finding bits that may need replacing, so I rip them out.

Once clean and rot free it is (I hope) just a matter of glassing in some new bits of ply and sticking the furniture back on.

I hope you do not have to go through all this. The materials are cheap enough, but the time is astronomic. That is why I am doing it my self.

m chappelow · 25 June 2008, 15:36

how about putting one of those deck flush inspection hatches in the bad bit you could always keep a few things in there too ,may be even do the job yourself .

Searider · 25 June 2008, 16:09

Hi Chuck,

It might not be as bad as having to rip the deck out.

I would suggest hammer sounding the deck - 4oz hammer gentle tapping to determine the true size of what you're looking at. Where the deck is good will sound very different to where the deck is bad.

Next would be to see if you can tell if the core material is wet or simply debonded from the upper laminate of the deck. I would use a moisture meter that reads deeply into a laminate but i'm guessing you won't have one.
The other way to tell if you have moisture is to drill into the core and see what comes out - dry plywood shavings or smelly brown mush. If you drill two holes, one near each end of the area this should tell you what you have.

If it's dry in there a simple fix which often, but not always, works is to inject resin. Inject into one of the holes until it comes out of the other, weight the middle down and wait to cure before making good the holes.

If it's damp the above is less likely to be successful but might be. An epoxy that can cure in wet conditions is what you want. I don't have any brand names for you unfortuneately.

If it's very wet in there then unfortunately you're probably looking at removing the top laminate, in the damaged area, digging out and replacing the core before laminating over the top and making good.

A lot of boats have soft spots in their decks and it's a case of deciding how severe it is and when you want or need to rectify it.

I hope this is of use.

Regards

Duncan

Lugnut · 25 June 2008, 16:58

I'll take a closer look at the transom as well now. LAST thing I want is be puttering about and have the engine fall off the back!!!

I'll check it with a small hammer and see what kind of sound I get, thanks for the tip. I also found some small cracks in the gelcoat yesterday. I'm beginning to think this is going to be a major overhaul. In any case it looks like the "school of hard knocks" is about to come into session.

jyasaki · 01 July 2008, 15:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lugnut

I'll take a closer look at the transom as well now. LAST thing I want is be puttering about and have the engine fall off the back!!!

My friends were new boaters, and they mentioned that the motor seemed to move a lot relative to the hull. Being a Honda 115, I knew it was heavy, and given that report, started to watch pretty carefully. What I saw was pretty scary. They didn't want to believe that anything was wrong (new toy); the ivestigative report from the repair shop kind of surprised them.

Quote:

I'm beginning to think this is going to be a major overhaul. In any case it looks like the "school of hard knocks" is about to come into session.

Hope not. But, better to get it taken care of on land than find out about it on the water.

Luck;

jky

Lugnut · 04 July 2008, 19:14

Seems that Stoo was correct about the soft spot being in my head. Guess with a new to me, used boat, I was simply paranoid.

I had a local boat yard take a look at the RIB. They said the flex I noticed is right in the middle of the span between supports and is perfectly normal.

They gave a quick once over for the boat and pronounced the transom perfectly sound, the the hull in need of some minor gel coat repairs, and a good coat of wax.

Took a bit over an hour including chatting and they didn't even charge me for the inspection.