Soft Cockpit Floor

dannyv1986

dannyv1986

New Member
My laser 2 has gotten really bad over the past winter. I think the last of the wood inside the boat has rotted away.

I think I need to go in and do something to try to fix the problem. All my past searches turn up references to dead links.

The flexing is bad enough that a light tug on the mainsheet block(in the middle of the cockpit), will actually cause the floor to raise up. There are hairline cracks in the corner of the cockpit wall/ cockpit floor. Sometimes there are up to 4 of them, all about 1mm apart.

I have a One Design Laser 2 Event which will require us to be racing it 2 days. I don't want the boat to die on me. I have up until june 12th to do the repair(when my new job starts).

fiberglass wise, i've never done anything. Are there any good references online?

Also, a laser 2 cockpit is about the same width and almost twice as long as a Laser cockpit.

Or, if someone can offer me a cheap hull thats sound... I'll listen to offers. I feel like an idoit that I organized a One Design Event for the class and my boat might die in the middle of the 3rd race.
 
I'm sure you know this, but there are L2 hull-in-construction pics on the class site. I've also stuck a camera inside my L2 hull, and I can see a small bit of the short bulkhead which the mainsheet block is connected to.

There's air space under the cockpit, so perhaps you could shape a piece of wood to fit on each side of the bulkhead there (fitting straight through to the other side), epoxy it (for waterproofness), and then use something like a 5200 adhesive to glue it to the bulkhead. Then, drill 4 new holes which connect into the new connected bulkheads, putting a metal plate over where the mainsheet block is currently connected. Then attach the mainsheet block to the metal plate?
I have no idea what i'm talking about, nor do i have much epoxy or fiberglass experience. But if it's an older hull, maybe worth a try

under construction pics: http://laser2.est.org/construction/construction.html

my hull inside, you can see the space where the bulkhead is, lower middle/right of pic
inside_hull.jpg


Edit:
I just looked at the construction pictures again, and there's a piece up the center of the cockpit, so it'd be impossible to stick something through.
 
im not an expert on this, but I think that you have to drill a hole every inch or so and inject it with some kind of gel, not to sure what its called.
 
Michaelgildomb said:
im not an expert on this, but I think that you have to drill a hole every inch or so and inject it with some kind of gel, not to sure what its called.
Click to expand...

Do you mean when you put a new screw into it? Yeah, you should get some marine adhesive, i think the 5200 is the permanent stuff. Always put that in new holes.

But Dan's problem probably isn't directly from that. My guess is that the adhesive is on the screw, and is the only reason the mainsheet block hasn't come out of the floor. The mainsheet block is actually attached to the bulkhead, and since it's come out of that , a glue "plug" from the old adhesive is probably what is keeping the screws from popping through the cockpit floor.
 
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