Are rotten decks a death sentence?

[Icarus]

Originally Posted by Thomas1985

There is a boat I have run across that has a large price drop due to the discovery of deck rot around the chain plates. Sounds like pretty large areas.

Is this a death sentence for the boat, or is it possible/ financially viable to have large scale deck rot addressed?

To give an idea were talking about large rot areas on a 36 foot boat and $20k price reduction.

It depends ... Generally you start digging on one end and finish up with halve a deck....or none at all
Usually rot extends to beams and ply bulkheads as well.
Time and money... It really depends on what the rest of the boat looks like...
Good luck

[Mike Stim]

I owned a Catalina 34 and had friends with 36's and I liked the layout of the 34's a lot better. They seem to have the same amount of room.

[Bill_Giles]

Basically boats are infinitely repairable, given enough money. A bit like my yard broom, I’ve had it for 30 years, it has had 4 new heads and three new handles.

[Calaban-Alleria]

Thomas1985 if you want to see what can be accomplished by a dedicated but non-professional (and if you want to kill a few hours) check out Sail Life channel re-coring the deck of a Warrior 38. It will give you a full view of the process and the potential results (he is now cruising full time):
https://youtu.be/Y7lC6KNWr1c?si=AN57QKnI69JxGvAR

[Seaward22]

Originally Posted by Bill_Giles

Basically boats are infinitely repairable, given enough money. A bit like my yard broom, I’ve had it for 30 years, it has had 4 new heads and three new handles.

. If you know what your doing!!?. Boat works on You tube is a fantastic choice to see what your getting into and how to do repairs in great detail . west Sytem epoxy has fantastic customer support also . When .l was skipper for the Sea scouts we got all sorts of derelict catalinas some if you jumped in the cock pit or the fore deck sounded like rice crispiest. Others were fully bonded and in great shape. Changing the rudder cable is also no small feat. Sorry for the typos have fat fingers and s bad temper.

[Thomas1985]

As a carpenter it really doesn’t look hard to do, but it would be a lot of hours…

Worst part would be spending your first season in the working yard.