macwas16 said:Hey David, looks like we can help you here to.
1) Yes! There should be plastic flotation bag like things called cubitainers inside the hull. There are 3, 20 Liter bags aft and 3, 10 Liter bags forward. If yours are not there, it is a good idea to replace them. You can purchase them at any local Vanguard dealer for $9 per 20 Liter bag and $6 per 10 liter bag. Just get them into the hull through the inspection port and inflate them with a shop vac.
2) 3M's 5200 is great stuff but I'm not sure I'd use it for fittings. The problem is that it's so strong, it provides a permanent seal meaning you'd have to drill it out or cut out the fitting if ever you needed to replace it.
3) Looking into the inside of the hull at the mast step, even the factory job is not very pretty. It is merely a block of plywood on the bottom surrounded by a "doughnut" and then wrapped up with some fiberglass cloth. It is a possability that someone tried to repair it by adding some fiberglass which is a pretty common fix on older Lasers. You're going to want to check that your mast step does not leak, so flip the boat right side up and poor water into the step and observe if the level goes down meaning the mast step does leak. If this should be the problem, it may require some additional fiberglass work. When the boat is hull side up, it is perfectly normal to see the outline of the plywood at the bottom of the mast step. Even my brand new Laser shows it just a bit.
Cheers.
david pollitt said:why is the flotation there at all if it is a watertight hull- for catastrophic failure?
Chuso007 said:Thank you Lou, I´ll try to take a picture of the thing and post it, I'm waiting for the mast step to dry out before I try to repair it.
The year of August said:I also have an older laser and im in the same boat.(pardon the pun). I dont believe i have any floatation bags in mine, but i also dont have an inspection port. So im wondering if it is even possible for me to have them ayways...they i assume werent put in to boats atleast before the 80s when you bought them new. And i am still considering wether or not it is worth the inspection port to put in the buyoncany bags (if there werent money issues i would immediatly but being a student i can hardly afford anything for my boat).
No Al, you are not alone....vtgent49 said:...The flotation is also helpful when you forget the transome plug! (I can't believe I'm the only one who has done this? duh!)
I remember years ago when I was a sailing instructor, we used to have a end of training week race, and during the "on water briefing" before the race it was a recurrent joke to discretly remove the plug of our students that were boring us the more during the past weekBaja said:Heh, heh, last Saturday went without the plug...
oufti said:I remember years ago when I was a sailing instructor, we used to have a end of training week race, and during the "on water briefing" before the race it was a recurrent joke to discretly remove the plug of our students that were boring us the more during the past week
Memories memories...
(excuse my poor english and thank you all for this very good forum full of good advices)