Newport 28 Soft Cabin Floor ?

[SURV69]

I'm looking to buy a Newport 28 and everything seems to be intact.

BUT, the headliner(?), or whatever the interior cabin floor(above the bildge), flexes when I walk on it . . . maybe an inch or so, around the bildge area.

I don't know if this is normal and I cannot find any information on this particular issue for the Newport.

So I'm wondering if anyone can ring in as to how flexible the interior cabin floor normally is and if there's either a way to stiffen it, or if there's maybe some sort of factory installed stiffener(s) that keeps the floor from flexing.

It's just that I've never seen an interior(headliner?) cabin floor flex before and I seriously doubt the headliner had a balsa core . . . but, who knows.

Thanks

John Francis
Pearson 26
Port Clinton, Ohio

[forsailbyowner]

cabin sole or deck is flexing? two quite different fixes. Most of the time the flexing in deck is caused by degradation of coring due to water intrusion. Its a big job to rebed the deck fittings and a spongey deck is the result of putting it off. One loose fastener can cause a large area of water intrusion over time.
fixes are a nontrivial task. Often requiring removing large areas of glass and replacing the soft coring. There are some quick fixes like git rot, but this is not an optimal repair. Flexing in sole is usually again from a leak overhead. Requires pulling up sole reframing and laying new deck.

[Jetexas]

I think you mean the cabin sole, which is the floor, not the headliner, which would be on the ceiling. I had some flex in my Starwind 27 when I bought it due to the wooden sole being rotten. The fiberglass floor is kind of flexible with out the wooden sole over it because it's open almost all the way down the middle for the bilge, but once I cut a new plywood floor and screwed it down, all the flex was gone.

[Steve W]

My 1986 Newport 28 MKII has a slanted fiberglass cabin sole and it does not flex. If the one you are considering has a flat teak and holley floor, it could be rotten due to water leaks or the cabin sole was under water for a while. I would lift the bilge access panel in the cabin sole and look/feel around the underside of the sole for rotten wood or loose cabin sole supports. The supports could have rotted. I have been on several N28's with the teak and holley cabin sole and they were all solid, no flex. The bigger issue is did a lot of water get into the boat from a partial sinking, etc. Look at the bulkheads (vertical wood walls)mast support and lower cabinet doors for staining from standing water that might have covered the sole. Probably worth having a surveyor look at it if you are not sure about what you find. Feel free to PM me if you want more info in the N28.

Steve