Call for Help/ This American Life (Merged)

[colemj]

Originally Posted by rebel heart

Well, as a guy who owned the boat for eight years, did a bunch of deck work, pulled up beams, drilled holes through for deck fills and vents, I can assure you that yes indeed it was teak over plywood over beams.

Basically every boat built before fiberglass had the construction of wood over wood over wood, and plenty of boats kept that up into the 1970's. Here's a picture of my boat, starborad foredeck. Plank pulled up, you'll note the wood directly underneath.

No doubt that is constructed how you said! I wasn't questioning the soundness of traditionally constructed wood decks - but those are not teak screwed into plywood. It is an interesting construction for an offshore blue water boat.

Were you taking care of rot in that picture?

Mark

[smackdaddy]

Originally Posted by Jon Eisberg

OK, forgive me if this has already been covered, and I've simply missed it...

From first hearing of the broach and the resultant damage, my first thought was 'How, exactly, was the boom being prevented?'

If it was done as some do, more or less vanged vertically from mid-boom to the rail or a deck attachment point somewhere amidships, might that have caused the damage? Frankly, that's the only likely way I can imagine dipping the boom might do so... So, again, do we know whether the damage was anywhere near the possible 'point of prevention'? :-)

I really dislike preventers rigged in that fashion, they're a recipe for breaking either a boom, the tackle employed, or deck gear... The forces involved - especially with a low aspect rig and a longer boom like on RH - are enormously higher and more leveraged than what seems a more 'proper' arrangement, namely rigging the preventer from the end of the boom, and taken forward to the bow...

Again, my apologies if this has already been clarified or addressed, I'm a bit late to this party :-)

Jon, that's the question I started with as well. It makes the most sense in terms of the described damage. But there were no clear answers on how/where it was rigged. So I started looking at potential chainplate issues since RH mentioned issues there in his blog. But that's looking less likely as well.

It seems to keep coming back to the preventer - and now potentially rot at the deck. But still no clear info.

BTW - here's that aft bulkhead (at the head of the pilot berth) from the interior:

[letsgetsailing3]

I think Eric's boat may have been a bit of an anomaly.

Here's something out of his blog:

"Thursday, March 22, 2007 at 9:30

By all accounts, including the naval architects own words, our boat is a bastard.

I found an article out there, which I borrowed and put on this site, which explains that the Hans Christian 36 that we own was a maverick, and occupies a strange spot in the history of American cruising yachts.
The Union 36, Polaris 36, and Hans Christian 36 are all the same boat.

Update on Friday, September 7, 2007 at 14:47 by Eric

The mystery is solved! Our hull number is XSA000040675, which means we were one of the first Hans Christians, built by the Union Ship Company. After this, they were renamed to Union Polaris 36's."


As far as the construction of Union Polaris 36's in general, from a review off the internet:

"From a structural standpoint, the boat is typical of Taiwanese-built boats from that era. Displacing 22,000 pounds, the hull is heavily constructed, almost to the point of being over-built.

The hull is thick, hand-laid fiberglass, while the deck is 5/8-inch teak planking over a sandwich of 3/8-inch fiberglass, 3/4-inch plywood, and another 3/8-inch glass layer. The cabintop is slightly lighter composite, using half-inch plywood as the core. The hull-to-deck joint is both through-bolted and glassed over on the inside. Rarely used in today’s production boats (which rely on high-strength adhesives at this joint instead), this labor-intensive approach yields a long-lasting watertight joint."

So it seems that Eric's boat might have been constructed a bit differently than most of the other examples.

[rebel heart]

Originally Posted by colemj

No doubt that is constructed how you said! I wasn't questioning the soundness of traditionally constructed wood decks - but those are not teak screwed into plywood. It is an interesting construction for an offshore blue water boat.

Were you taking care of rot in that picture?

Mark

I think there was some caulking failure; it was pretty routine for me to reef and pay seams on the teak decks. This was early on in the first couple of years that we owned the boat, so I think I pulled it just to see what was underneath it.

[fryewe]

From a 2007 blog post by Eric:

For the last four weeks, I've spent pretty much every weekend down on the boat, scraping varnish and cetol. Because of the damage done, the stern pulpit was removed, along with the boomkin and its corresponding rails that were thru-bolted to the deck.

This alone served as the catalyst to start the long over due wood restoration and protection process, because removing the rails showed off some nice black ( = rotted) wood where the rails were. This of course created a need to start repairing the wood around that area, and also the wood that would be hard to deal with once the rails were back in place, so let's get into it!





Also a cabin side from a different post:



Clearly the construction technique and materials - coupled with age and wear - on Rebel Heart weakened the deck to some degree. It's not unlikely that the damage Eric found during his preps was more widespread and passed unnoticed and thus unrepaired. If the deck (and rail attachment point) were weakened by rot, with the additional load on the pushpit of solar panel and outboard motor (and perhaps a preventer) the force may have been enough to wrench the deck or deck/rail interface open when the boat took its hit at sea.

[smackdaddy]

Originally Posted by fryewe

Clearly the construction technique and materials - coupled with age and wear - on Rebel Heart weakened the deck to some degree. It's not unlikely that the damage Eric found during his preps was more widespread and passed unnoticed and thus unrepaired. If the deck (and rail attachment point) were weakened by rot, with the additional load on the pushpit of solar panel and outboard motor (and perhaps a preventer) the force may have been enough to wrench the deck or deck/rail interface open when the boat took its hit at sea.

That's certainly looking like the most likely scenario. It's just strange that this particular HC wasn't built like the other HCs...or Unions...or Polarises...etc. Seeing wood-on-wood under that plank, and no waterproof barrier other than caulk on a boat that old...big red flag.

Of course, he also said there was no glass/gelcoat on the cabin top either (just wood-on-wood) - yet there certainly appears to be in that photo. There just seem to be a lot of conflicting details.

I did just find this where RH is repairing several areas of rot (some pretty big) - with epoxy injections and Elmer's wood filler...

http://www.therebelheart.com/blog/20...-the-ways.html





And in another post about some work on the head he mentions rot in the bulkhead.

Was this just a boat that was going to keep coming apart in heavier stuff?

[colemj]

U36, HC36, P36 - whatever - at least it wasn't a Beneteau or catamaran. Those aren't constructed for offshore blue water work at all.

Mark

[smackdaddy]

Originally Posted by colemj

U36, HC36, P36 - whatever - at least it wasn't a Beneteau or catamaran. Those aren't constructed for offshore blue water work at all.

Mark

Heh-heh. I was wondering when someone would play that card. Thank goodness I have a Hunter!

[rebel heart]

Those holes are from when I read the internet, telling me it was glass. A few months later I realized it was wood and ripped the whole piece out. It was also nowhere near any damage from this incident and five years ago.



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[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by rebel heart

Those holes are from when I read the internet, telling me it was glass. A few months later I realized it was wood and ripped the whole piece out. It was also nowhere near any damage from this incident and five years ago.

Can you draw where the damage was from this incident, please? It might help us stay off some wild goose chase

[fryewe]

Originally Posted by smackdaddy

I did just find this where RH is repairing several areas of rot (some pretty big) - with epoxy injections and Elmer's wood filler...

And in another post about some work on the head he mentions rot in the bulkhead.

Was this just a boat that was going to keep coming apart in heavier stuff?

It's imperative when rot is found that the cause is corrected as well as the repair to damage being made. Sometimes the cause is hard to winnow down. Sometimes time gets in the way. Sometimes lack of money gets in the way. Sometimes lack of experience or skill gets in the way. Sometimes things get pushed down priority lists. Sometimes lists are lost and things forgotten.

But causes have to be corrected.

Not saying Rebel Heart didn't fix causes. I don't know and blogs don't tell whole stories (not that I read all of his).

[smackdaddy]

Originally Posted by rebel heart

Those holes are from when I read the internet, telling me it was glass. A few months later I realized it was wood and ripped the whole piece out. It was also nowhere near any damage from this incident and five years ago.



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When you say "glass" or "no glass" are you talking solely about the composite core (wood)? There is clearly the typical glass/gelcoat toplayer you see in the photo - and likely another below the wood core on the interior (if the composite construction method description you had in your blog is to be believed). It's clearly not simply wood-on-wood as you said earlier.

I'm just wondering if this is a terminology problem.

(Look! A goose! Heh-heh.)

[rebel heart]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

Can you draw where the damage was from this incident, please? It might help us stay off some wild goose chase

When I saw someone needed a map to find the starboard quarter, it helped me to realize the large diversity of folks engaged in this conversation.

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[fryewe]

Originally Posted by smackdaddy

When you say "no glass" are you talking solely about the composite core (wood)? There is clearly the typical top glass/gelcoat layer you see in the photo - and likely another below the wood core (if the composite construction method description you had in your blog is to be believed). It's clearly not simply wood-on-wood as you said earlier.

Smack....I think you're referring to the cabin top. I can't tell from the photo if the outer layer is glass...it looks too thin to be a layup and is perhaps a layer or two of cloth and resin or perhaps faired resin that has been painted. Or not. Don't know what would keep it from cracking/crazing if that is the case.

[smackdaddy]

Originally Posted by fryewe

Smack....I think you're referring to the cabin top. I can't tell from the photo if the outer layer is glass...it looks too thin to be a layup and is perhaps a layer or two of cloth and resin or perhaps faired resin that has been painted. Or not. Don't know what would keep it from cracking/crazing if that is the case.

Yeah - it's hard to tell from the photo. But that post earlier (from RH's blog) on the construction method of the boat talked about a typical glass/wood/glass composite for both the deck and cabin top. And this is what he said in that blog entry regarding the portlight repair:

The sides of our coach roof (cabin top) are 35 year old plywood with 35 year old fiberglass above it.

Again, it's clear something wonky was going on with RH since this apparently wasn't the case at the deck. But the terminology keeps moving all over the place as well - so it's hard to know.

In any case, rot does certainly seem to be an issue.

I've yanked them all off, and sure enough there's a significant amount of delaminated and rotten plywood lurking behind the fiberglass. Fiberglassed over wood seems prone to this type of behavior. The relatively tough fiberglass skin doesn't crack or swell until significant damage has been happening for a long period of time. With simple painted wood, the paint will crack quickly and the damage much more localized.