CAL-35 Soggy Deck/Pending Refit

[Cheechako]

If we are not gong to repeat questions on here then... Administrators: "shut 'er down" we're definitely done!

[unbusted67]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

If we are not gong to repeat questions on here then... Administrators: "shut 'er down" we're definitely done!

Haha, "I'm a little new here. What is the best free Blue Water Sailboat I can buy? every heard that one before?

[unbusted67]

Hey just a little update on this. My wife in all of her wisdom and lovliness insisted we get a second opinion from another surveyor before I spent a dime refitting. In short the new surveyor said he knew the original surveyor and that he is "an alarmist." He told us, "I'd sail just about anywhere with you in this boat." oddly he was looking at my wife when he said it!

He pointed out a few things for us to fix. One large soft spot in the bow needed to be dug out. But when I pulled up the deck skin I found the wood, which had been pinging my moisture meter and which was delaminated to be dry as a bone!?!?! I sealed it all back up and am calling it good. I am, however rebedding all of my deck fittings and re painting the non skid.

Yay! I bought a perfectly good boat for dirt cheap! It makes me think the the seller should have not taken our original surveyor's word at face value. Sometimes fixer upper stories actually do work out.

Sincerely,

Covered in epoxy.

[Azul]

Ben, I missed your initial request or I would have tried to help out a fellow Cal owner. I've written extensively about repairing Cal decks complete with pictures.

Make sure you take a look at those posts, for example it was a mistake to tear up the top skin instead of investigating through the bottom: the interior skin is as thin as a dorito but the strength of the deck comes from the very thick outer FG skin and the laminated 1/2" marine plywood underneath.

Go ahead and rebed all of your deck hardware after reviewing the technique on Compass Marine's website which is extremely detailed. If you have any soft spots, they will be under leaking deck hardware or chain plates. The outer deck is so thick you will not feel "soft" spots or hear them by tapping. In fact, I could still walk gingerly across my deck after removing the plywood and inner skin during repair. I didn't think I had any water penetration until I started rebedding hardware, which turned into a major project.

Fortunately, due to its design the hull/deck joint isn't prone to leaking.

[unbusted67]

Can you link to the threads you are referring to? I too have a lot of experience re coring my Cal decks and I haven't found that the under skin is very thin at all. In fact you could almost walk on it. As you well know a Cal from the 60s can be nothing like a cal from the 70s much less 80s. Just look at the Cal 35 cruising vs the mkII, two totally different beasts.

Anyway I am interested in hearing what recoring from the bottom up entails. It sounds incredibly messy. I rely heavily on gravity to allow the epoxy to wet out all of the surfaces.

What is your chain plate situation in the 34? Mine consist of d rings which link to a piece of ss rod rigging that ties into a horizontal member. Sound familiar at all?

[Azul]

None of my chain plates are original. They were all beefed up, probably because early Cal's had a reputation for the rigging not being sturdy enough. They don't look like yours at all.

I'm surprised to hear that your deck is constructed differently than mine. All of the Cal deck repairs I have heard about had to be done from the interior, which is incredibly messy and difficult. The only way to get a secure bond is to slather the plywood with thickened epoxy (after wetting out the inside of the FRP deck first) and drive screws through the plywood into the outer fiberglass shell.

Since the deck is crowned, the plywood has to have longitudinal grooves cut in it to help it bend, and since I didn't have any help I had to drive numerous screws all the way through the deck to get the plywood to crown (about 6 inches on center) then had to remove the screws and repair the holes afterward. It wasn't expensive, just messy and time consuming. Then I put a layer of fiberglass (CSM) over the plywood, faired it with polyester and painted it with Interlux. It came out great and is better than new as the factory worker didn't wet out the original fiberglass very well.

I didn't put gelcoat on over the fiberglass as original as I detest gelcoat after stripping every bit of it from the inside of the boat. I don't think gelcoat adds much to the structural integrity as others have suggested. The deck is like a granite slab now.

PM me if you have other questions.

[unbusted67]

The deck is indeed crowned a bit but there are lots of sections that are flat enough, ie under the jib track or up in the bow where the anchor might leave some divots. If you just do it in small enough sections and use weights (I used led ingots) to press down on the outer deck skin when reinstalling then it comes out fair. You then bevel the edges and lay down a couple of extra strips of glass between the reinstalled skin and the deck. The advantage of doing it from the top down is that you can really get the epoxy to get into all of the cracks between the new and old ply. I have a hard time seeing how you would do this from the bottom up unless you thicken the hell out of the epoxy that to are using to bed the ply. Any way to each his own. Your method sounds interesting and I might give it a try next time. Hopefully there won't be a next time for either of us.

[unbusted67]

Originally Posted by unbusted67

As you well know a Cal from the 60s can be nothing like a cal from the 70s much less 80s. Just look at the Cal 35 cruising vs the mkII, two totally different beasts.

I happened to climb aboard a CAL 40 tonight and man did it ever drive home my previous point. That boat might as well have been made from a different manufacture all together. It looks nothing like my boat. Nice boat though. It looks tough as nails.