Through bolting the hull to deck joint

A

alienp2

New Member
Having just repaired the hull / deck joint on my laser over about a 1m plus length where it hangs on the trolley, I'm wondering if the repair will hold.

Lots of good advice on here about how to do the job and I used a West Epoxy kit. Its just that getting it nice and clean inside the joint was a devil of a job, especially towards the ends of the split where I couldn't prise it open very far. The spilt was actually longer than I first thought and I ended up using the whole bottle of epoxy as the old filler was quite thick and left a large gap to fill once I'd chipped it off. It was quite difficult to judge how tight to clamp it afterwards as it kept squeezing the epoxy back out at the centre. With hind sight I'd have bought a bigger pot and kept on feeding it in.

Being a pessimist I'm already planning what to do if the repair doesn't hold and wondered if anyone had tried through bolting the joint. I was thinking of maybe 3 or 4 round headed machine screws with a washer each side at about 150mm centres along the worst bit of the joint.

We always sail in a wetsuit so unlikely to worry about getting jabbed.

Any thoughts?
 
The repair should hold fine as long as you left it clamped whilst everything went off. I have never had to re-repair a hull-deck joint as long as it was dry and cleaned out.

What age is the boat? There were some batches that were prone to the hull/deck joint coming away because on use of an inferior bonding product. I seem to recall it way sail numbers around 50-65000 certainly in the UK. Other regions may or may not have been affected.
 
The hull number is 68871 apparently. I can't find it on the hull but that makes it about 40 years old I think. The boat was given a comprehensive refurbishment by the previous owner about 10 years ago including the mast step.

Unfortunately I left it in the dinghy park with the bung out (as usual) and during the floods in January it ended up pretty much under water so when I went back to it afterwards it was full of water. I suspect the added weight opened up a weak point. Took it sailing a couple of months ago and it filled up again. That was when I discovered the split.

The old bonding agent around the joint was very brittle and pinkish in colour. When I chipped it away it was almost like a cement paste.

Fingers crossed for the new repair. It's in the club workshop staying warm and dry for a week.

Anyway, here's a pic of the boat.
323040_1.jpg
 
DONT
bolt through the gunnel...
Capsizing to weather on a reach / run ( a slam ), the likelihood of the sail remaining full is high to most probable.
The boat would want to keep going and the natural thing to do is grab at it....but where do we grab ? The gunnel.
Dodgy repairs ( even neat repairs that haven't been sanded to finish ) do enough damage but I dread to imagine how nuts with portions of machined thread protruding would feel on cold fingers, at the very least nasty boat releasing pain, at worst no finger tips.

Have faith in your fix, if a section of it didn't bite - go back, dry it out, clean it and re-fix.
Kudos for d.i.y.
 
Good point. Thanks.

I'm wondering if I overdid the repair now,because I can't see a way of going back to repair a shorter length. For just a local fix, would you only clean out the vertical part of the joint (with the boat upsidedown). For the repair I did, I was prising the two parts away by about an inch to create a line of sight into the hull through about a half inch gap and cleaning out the horizontal surface. May explain why I used so much epoxy.
 
For routing out the joint I use a dremel with an appropriately skinny fluke bit.
You can cut as much or as little as you feel ok with - a one inch split I'd ream out half inch each side, hoover then acetone wash and fill with a 404 mix.

'Clamped so tight all the gear squashed out'..... The excess that stayed inside the hull will pick up a dusty coating and form a blob and just hang about for a few years. If the hull and deck were crimped beyond their natural position and are now in a spring situation but epoxied with a v thin veneer they might open up with use. If they do it's not the end of the world and not impossible to rectify.

Just an fyi, keep the components to be bridged in a neutral state and force in a backing ( wetted waste strands of cloth are good ) and fill up to that at the back of the job before moving forward.
 
the other thing you can use is a hacksaw blade (if you do not have a dremel) that clears the rubbish out the joint pretty well and roughens up the surface and doesn't create as much dust as a dremel....

I used this on a 75,000 vintage boat and it worked well and I had no leaks after.

68,000 is probably a bit new to have the dodgy bonding but you never know what has happened to the boat in the intervening years. It filling with water would definitely have been enough to break the bond. Have you got a hatch in it? If not put one in as this will help dry the hull out.
 
Good news! The repair held and after a couple of hours sailing today she was almost dry inside. No water sloshing about, but my hand came away very slightly damp when I really reached into the depths through the inspection hatch.

The epoxy was a lot stronger than I expected and I needed a lump hammer to knock off the two strips of wood I was using between the G-clamps. Still got a bit of sanding to do to take off the last of the over-spill but with the weather as it was, I was too keen to get on the water.

There appear to be a couple of very minor pin-holes left in the epoxy, which might explain the slight dampness. I'll drill them out and re-fill with epoxy when I've got a bit more time.

Question about the trolley. It is gunnell hung at the bow and each side and the hull touches the rest underneath at thr front (about 2 foot back from the bow). However, the main rest between the two gunnell supports is about 4 inches off the bottom of the hull. Should I build this up with padding or strap a sling across the supports to share the load across more of the hull?
 
Well done you, almost dry...
Keep at it. Remember to rinse away the salty water residue and thoroughly dry her before the next bit of work.

Re the trolley, no it's called a gunnel hung trolley. The turn of the deck and hull combined make the area very strong in comparison to the rest of the hull. The less contact your hull has with anything other than water the better.
 
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