Should I fix or sell my boat?

[TrentePieds]

Ellevan:

Your points are very well taken, and the video is a very good one, in fact it depicts the way any competent craftsman would do the repair of a FLAT transomed powderboat. Thre is much to learn from that video and I am sure you will.

So the task now becomes one of adapting and applying what you've learned there to a CURVED transom that in contradistinction to the transom on "run-abouts" presents serious challenges to access. Let me assure you - having seen the movie - that working with resin in confined spaces is no joy :-)

As the week-end wears on I will work through your post and make specific comments. Have you tried yet to draw a dimensioned 3-view? I think that that should be an essential part of the thinking and planning process :-)

TP

[Ellevan]

TP:

Thanks for your reply. Looking forward to hearing more. I find myself contemplating this project from different angles all day everyday while completing completely unrelated tasks. How useful. I think...
And yet another question that you or another may answer - If working from the outside, is there any reason one must cut the entire transom out, or could one just cut let's say 6-8" out from either side of the transom cut-out and likely down to the bottom(I know water can travel sideways, but most definitely flows down). If it worked out in my favour that this was the extent of the damage, it would leave me ample room to scarph the sides for a good strong joint and make this project a lot faster and less expensive? Would this fix be strong enough?
I hear what you're saying about the curvature of this transom, so I'm leaning towards using the multiple layers of 1/4", though I'm not apposed to your idea of strip-planking. I'll try to find a tutorial.

E

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by Ellevan

TP:

Thanks for your reply. Looking forward to hearing more. I find myself contemplating this project from different angles all day everyday while completing completely unrelated tasks. How useful. I think...
And yet another question that you or another may answer - If working from the outside, is there any reason one must cut the entire transom out, or could one just cut let's say 6-8" out from either side of the transom cut-out and likely down to the bottom(I know water can travel sideways, but most definitely flows down). If it worked out in my favour that this was the extent of the damage, it would leave me ample room to scarph the sides for a good strong joint and make this project a lot faster and less expensive? Would this fix be strong enough?
I hear what you're saying about the curvature of this transom, so I'm leaning towards using the multiple layers of 1/4", though I'm not apposed to your idea of strip-planking. I'll try to find a tutorial.

E

I believe to count for the curve I would laminate a new transom from marine grade plywood. Glass the inside and glass it into the hull and cockpit seats then glass over the exterior and fair it in to the hull. Option one would be save the Honda outboard and find a sound boat.

[Souzag818]

Originally Posted by Ellevan

TP:

Thanks for your reply. Looking forward to hearing more. I find myself contemplating this project from different angles all day everyday while completing completely unrelated tasks. How useful. I think...
And yet another question that you or another may answer - If working from the outside, is there any reason one must cut the entire transom out, or could one just cut let's say 6-8" out from either side of the transom cut-out and likely down to the bottom(I know water can travel sideways, but most definitely flows down). If it worked out in my favour that this was the extent of the damage, it would leave me ample room to scarph the sides for a good strong joint and make this project a lot faster and less expensive? Would this fix be strong enough?
I hear what you're saying about the curvature of this transom, so I'm leaning towards using the multiple layers of 1/4", though I'm not apposed to your idea of strip-planking. I'll try to find a tutorial.

E

Re- read my post #88.....

[TrentePieds]

Well, here is more :-)

My wordprocessor seems to be playing silly-buggers, so let's see if this will copy in in its entirety. My comments on your comments are in italics:

:In all efforts to avoid cutting the outer skin of the transom off (being that I've never done any FG work before...), I'm still considering going at it from the inside.

There is an old saying: “The long way about is the quick way home”! I think this may be one of those :-) The reason I think so will become apparent as we work through your points.

As you can see, there isn't a very thick layer, or even any fiberglass on the inside in some areas,...

Yes, but that doesn't surprise me. The boat was designed to be inboard powered, and the transom would not then be a high stress area. Hanging a kicker on the end is very much a “second best” solution that people choose if 1) the inboard diesel dies and they don't want to spend twenty grand on replacing it. 2) they are trying to enter the yachting world without sufficient financial substance to do so properly. Back when this hull was built, many, many boats were supplied sans inboard by the factory, precisely because from the factory's point of view a “sale is a sale”. Either way, the transom was never stressed to take the pushing, and particularly not the racking, forces of an outboard motor. The boats with outboards in this size range that I have skippered all had kickers of 9.9HP (there were bureaucratic reasons for that) rather than 15HP. So given that you have to work on the transom in any event, and given that you should not, IMO, spend twenty grand on an inboard for this particular boat, you should beef up the transom construction so it will not give trouble in the future. It won't be all that difficult, and the anticipation will be more frightening than the deed :-)!


...leading me to believe that I am going to loose the shape of the transom if I removed the outer skin and begin removing material that way.

Good thought, that :-)! It is precisely as a prophylactic against that that I am advocating that you draw a 3-view. In your opening post, you said that your intention is to learn as well as to get to go sailing. Here is your chance to learn to do what is called “taking off the lines”: On an existing boat, you take measurements that permit you to work up a “lines drawing” of the boat. “Lines” consist of “Shear Plan”, “Body Plan” and “Half Breadth Plan”. Again we are talking about a job that is essentially costless in terms of money, but IMO an essential part of preparing for the physical repair work so the money spent on that won't be wasted. That is why I said that , as in painting, “prep” is 95% of the work :-) If you do this, you will NOT lose the shape of the transom. You don't, obviously need to take the lines of the whole boat, just the last 3 feet or so at the stern. Again, the reason will become clearer to you as our discussion progresses.


I'm thinking of cutting from the inside, under the cockpit, starting small just around the engine mount area and working my way out to discover 'good wood'. Once there(hopefully) I will bevel as much as I can(4" or so) on all sides of what I've removed. If it turns out that nearly the entire thing is toast, I would leave a 2" lip of remaining FG all the way around the bottom, sides, and up against the cockpit floor to bond to, and removed what's left of the rotted*plywood*between the skins at the edges and from above at the cutout in the pictures. If it's not all rotted, then my repair would be a lot smaller and I'd have plenty of room to bevel all the way around the repair.

I understand your argument and I see why you are making it. I think, however, given what is under your cockpit sole, that you may get yourself seriously up a gum tree going at it this way. You also need to consider that you don't want to cut into the cockpit seats, if you can avoid it. On you boat they extend right aft to the inner skin of the transom, I do believe. As I said: The (apparently) long way about will be the quick way home.


A major consideration is that plywood obviously cannot be butt-joined. Scarf-joined, yes – butt joined, no. There ARE ways of butt-joining ply, but I cannot see how you could avail yourself of them while jammed in under your cockpit sole. The last thing you want is to get going on a repair that then fails because you run into difficulties you hadn't foreseen, or that is so difficult to execute that you lose heart.


Back to if it's a much larger area, I would have to probably split the ply into 3 sections, one either side with beveled inside edges to bond the main center piece. Hard to explain.

I understand completely what you mean. However, BECAUSE YOUR TRANSOM IS CURVED, this will not, IMO, work well at all, and the smaller the individual pieces you try to work with, the dodgier the problem becomes. The reason is that forcing the material into a curve introduces stresses that will try to straighten the material again, and those stresses need to be countered.

Now if you cut through the outer skin as is done in the video, you can curve the ply and counter the stresses introduced by laminating 3 layers of ply. The glue between the laeyrs will counter the stresses and maintain the curvature. Or you can avoid stresses altogether by using “strip-plank” construction. I would consider the latter far more satisfactory, for reasons we can come back to.

Removing the outer skin cleanly could prove a problem UNLESS we think the procedure through carefully. There again I consider a dimensioned 3-view an essential part of the prep work. I think there is a case to be made for “borrowing” the technique for cleaning out between the skins from the SeaCast manual. I'll sleep on that one, one more time :-)


Fast forward to 1:10 on this video to see what I'm getting at. Does this make sense? Could you or someone please describe any issues I may have doing the repair this way? Would it not be in my best interest to leave the outer skin in tact?

My reason for asking you to look at SeaCast was precisely, as I think I stated, that in the best of all worlds you WOULD leave the outer skin intact. Having now thought thoroughly about SeaCast, I now believe that there is much that militates against its use in this case, and that your best interest is served by REMOVING the outer skin INTACT, so that it it may be easily put back in place one the internal structure is sound. If removed intact this panel will retain it's proper curvature. The trick will be to get it to pop off cleanly. As I said, I think more thinking is required :-)


There is quite a bit of room under the cockpit. Not comfortable by any means, but with some planks set up across the shape of the*hull*and some serious shoulder and forearm workouts, it could be done?

I am thinking now about doing the job from the outside. Your transom is too high up with the boat on the hard to work on comfortably. An essential factor leading to success in this kind of work is having a comfortable working position. I would build a scaffolding at the appropriate height so I could work in a standing position with lots of elbow room. Remember when you are working with stick'um, that when (not if) you spill any, the cleaning up is a royal PITA – worse than doing the work! Epoxy, which is what you should use, is noxious stuff that can easily give you dermatitis, and if you get it in your eyes, it can blind you. So don't take chances. Work is a safe comfortable position! And do read the HAZMAT stuff published by WorkSafe BC. And pay attention ;-)


TP

[Ellevan]

Update for those who might be interested.

After a couple days of closer inspection of the transom, I came to the conclusion that there are multiple little issues in different areas, so removing the entire outer skin with the hope of reusing it was my best option. Otherwise I'd be cutting many small areas with the hope of cutting large enough, and likely ending up with a bunch of small pieces that would be difficult to reuse. I've left at least 4" to allow for a proper 12-1 scarf joint all the way around. I was actually surprised to find that it wasn't as bad as I thought, but still glad I opened it up. The upper port side is wet and the ply in that area has delaminated. The lower area around the engine mount, and further starboard around the propane locker vent is black and beginning to rot, thought I think the layers closer to the inner skin are worse than the outer from what I've seen down below, so some cutting and digging will be necessary. It's obvious that when the cutout was created, there was no effort given to bonding the transition from inner skin across the cutout to the outer skin, which led to the water intrusion between the skins and core. I assume I will have to scarf a couple of inches to the inside of the cockpit around the cutout to form a proper bond. Another thing I found was a void about 2' long and a 1/4" wide between the FG layers down low to the port side. I don't think any water had made it's way in there, but I assume I'll be filling this with epoxy.
After all delaminated and rotten ply are removed, and remaining ply is scarfed and epoxied to new replacement core, I am also considering the size of the cutout. It seems very difficult to find any useful information about the size of a sailboat transom cutout, different styles of outboard mounts, and heights of mount placement. Obviously I don't want my prop coming out of the water in a swell, but I also don't want to submerge too much of my outboard leg creating drag and inefficiency. I'd like to find out more about the size of cutout I really need with the possibility of raising it up a little while I'm in there. Wish me luck...

[TrentePieds]

You are doing a great job :-)!

The length of leg on outboard motors are standard. On this boat you need a "long leg" job, so measure what you have and see if Honda's can supply a longer one. IMO you want the longest leg you can get. The legsw should be interchangeable directly, long for short.

The reason you want the long one is that you want the bottom of the cutout to be a high above water as you can get it. You can obviously steer an outboard-equipped boat by turning the motor, but IMO that is bad practice. I would leave the motor locked in the "straight ahead" position, and bring a throttle control cable into the cockpit so you can control the boat in proper seaman-like fashion. Think about that when you build up the new transom.

As the Salish Sea tends to be characterized by flat water in the sailing season, many people get away with crossing the Strait entirely on the outboard. However, if the is any kind of swell reunning you cannot avoid having the prop pull out now and then. Not good for the motor and a pain to listen to. So you want you prop as deep as the motor spects will let you sink it. Again, the Honda manual should tell you that, and you should dimention your transon/motor mount accordingly.

You've probably already thought of this: The greatest danger of shipping water in heavy weather is that of getting "pooped", i.e, taking green water into the cockpit over the transom. That can be extremely dangerous, so the higher you can keep your freeboard the better. There is an argument to be made for having no transom cut-out at all, but mounting the outboard on a bracket outboard on a full height transom. You 15 horse probably has electric start, so so mounting it should not cause major inconvenience, particularly not if you take the throttle control into the cockpit.

However you choose to mount the kicker, the boat will not be manageable in reverse with the same certainty that boats with inboard motors are. But if you are going to be lying to a can, rather than be in a marina, that should be no great detriment.

Cheers

TP

[Attikos]

IF YOU LIKE YOUR BOAT, YOU CAN KEEP YOUR BOAT!

Oh. Wait. That's something else.

Never mind.

[Ellevan]

Thanks TP. I like the idea of reducing or even getting rid of the cutout. I will set up a throttle control in the cockpit and I like the idea of locking the engine dead straight. Is there no need to ever turn it by hand to increase one's ability to turn sharply in a marina? It know this would mean juggling the turning of the engine AND the tiller, which would not be easy.
I have seen a couple of boats with two vertical bars and the engine would slide up and down with the help of a rope and block. This seems like a pretty slick setup and would allow me to fill in the cutout completely and be able to pull the outboard up to the height of the cockpit if I wanted it out of the water or needed to do maintenance. Any ideas?

[hellosailor]

No tiller (rudder, really) works unless there is water flowing past it. So when you are not moving, the rudder is useless.

That's when having an outboard motor that CAN be rotated becomes useful. It can push the stern left or right, with no forward motion. No rudder assistance needed.

[Ellevan]

In that case, do you just let the rudder move on its own while controlling steering with the outboard?

[hellosailor]

Either you lock the rudder midships, or you steer with it as well. One hand for each.

[TrentePieds]

Quote: "Is there no need to ever turn it by hand to increase one's ability to turn sharply in a marina? "

IMO there is never any NEED to turn sharply. There are often circumstances where it is DESIRABLE to be able to turn sharply - that's why bow-thrusters were invented.:-)

So, as in all things to do with boats, compromises must be made. We all make compromises that reflect our own particular preferences and styles of boat handling as well as the particular waters and circumstances in which we sail.

In #112 I made it clear that IN MY OPINION, i.e. bases on MY experience (in the same waters in which you will sail) it is "nicer" to keep the outboard locked straight ahead. If my home port was the marina at Campbell River, I might have to modify that preference. Lying to a can off Comox, I don't think I would.

And here is why: As HelloSailor points out, no steering is possible unless there is flow over the rudder. That is true whether you are making headway or whether you are making sternway. Going ahead, there is little difference twixt the handling of an inboard powered boat and the handling of an outboard powered boat. What difference there is stems from the much greater efficiency of the much bigger ("swept area") prop of the inboard. Going astern, however, the difference is marked. Again due to the much bigger prop of the inboard equipped boat, you can take advantage of what at first blush appears to be a DISadvantage, viz a trait called "prop walk". An outboard powered boat has so little "prop-walk" that it's of no use to man or beast. That doesn't mean that you can't turn going astern. It does mean that you have to have way on to do so, whereas in an inboard powered boat you can do what I call a pirouette, i.e. you can spin the boat around on a vertical axis that lies about midships while making no way at all. I do so every time I come to my home slip at Ladysmith. So maneuvering in tight quarters, the inboard has it all over the outboard equipped boat, IF the outboard is kept fixed. IF, however, the outboard can be turned, then the outboard may well have it over the inboard, but you pay for that in other ways. And that is why sensible compromises must be made.

One possible compromise is that you couple the turning of the outboard to the action of the helm. Runabouts are steered by wheel from a sitting position. The wheel is connected to the motor's tiller by means of cables. There is no reason at all that you cannot connect the outboard's tiller to the boat's tiller by cables, or even mount a “twist throttle” on the boat's tiller. But doing so demands a compromise in respect of the raising and lowering of the outboard. Never forget, however, that Willy Occam with his razor is the best shipmate you'll ever have, so if I were you, planning to sail in the Broughtons, or indeed anywhere in the Salish Sea, I'd eschew such complexities. In fact, the Crown 28 handles so well under sail that lying to a can, as I understood your intention is, I'd simply sail 'er. I doubt that I'd use the motor very much at all, except when there is too little wind to sail.

So then we come hack to the lowering and raising of the machine, but that will have to wait till tomorrow :-)

TP

[thomm225]

As was mentioned above, using the tiller on the outboard and/or the boat's tiller you can move your boat in any direction whereas boats with diesels (or outboards that are locked in place) cannot

I have a small horseshoe shaped bracket my Boat's Tiller fits in when not in use attached to the Aft Lazarette

So sometimes I'll place the boat's tiller there and come out of my slip with outboard alone

If it's really windy and the tide is low, I'll use both because I don't have as much room (at my slip/marina) and can hit bottom. With both, I can make some really shape turns

You can also move your boat at 90 degree angles when tying it off to the pilings in your slip with a rotating outboard

I have no remote cables etc. I like less clutter.

I raise the outboard totally out of the water once I get my sails up and am out into the bay. This does get exciting at times when it's windy and the boat is heeling at 20 degrees or more.......and I'm squatting on the aft lazarette by the stern railing hanging off the stern raising and tying the motor off

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by Ellevan

Thanks TP. I like the idea of reducing or even getting rid of the cutout. I will set up a throttle control in the cockpit and I like the idea of locking the engine dead straight. Is there no need to ever turn it by hand to increase one's ability to turn sharply in a marina? It know this would mean juggling the turning of the engine AND the tiller, which would not be easy.
I have seen a couple of boats with two vertical bars and the engine would slide up and down with the help of a rope and block. This seems like a pretty slick setup and would allow me to fill in the cutout completely and be able to pull the outboard up to the height of the cockpit if I wanted it out of the water or needed to do maintenance. Any ideas?

Well, the cutout is a good or bad thing. Any BIG water coming from the stern may get into the cockpit, but with the cutout it flows out super fast. A full cockpit without the cutout stern can take several minutes to go out. I have rarely seen seas in the Puget Sound or the inside Van Isle big enough to poop a boat in sailing season, and then they would also have to be from astern. But the Straight could be a place where that could happen coming East.