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Well, I'm in the prep process of my first restoration on my 13' sport. I noticed a few spongy spots on the deck at the beam where the non skid is and it moves up to where the curve is in the hull near the anchor locker. It is like this in spots on both the port and starboard sides. I drilled a few 1/4" holes and the residue on the drill bit was moist. I'm not sure if these old whalers (1979) had a balsa cored deck or just foam. I ran a shop vac over the holes and there were small amounts of moisture drawn from them. I am not sure where the water came from, although the boat had been sitting out in the open for several years. Maybe from old screw holes or from the bow eye bolt when it was used.
Anyway, should I just let it dry out or fill with penetrating epoxy?
No balsa, its all foam. There are a few places in there where there is a bit of wood, you can find the wood locating diagrams in the downloads section here. You can try and dry it for a bit I guess, most drill some holes near the transom and raise the bow and then let it sit for months and months. I would say do your best to see what it weighs. You should be able to lift up the bow, or the transom, or rock it around by yourself. If it is too heavy to the degree that its a real struggle for you to budge it yourself then its really wet in there. If not, and you can move it around pretty good, it should be ok to seal up and go. Most all of em are wet, just depends on the degree. If you really want to be sure, take it to the weight station. Ideally you should see around 300 pounds or so.
I've been able to move the boat around fairly easily and rocked her around pretty good just to get her off the trailer. The boat sat around so long, the rollers didn't move. The trailer needs a fair amount of work so getting the boat to a weigh station at this point would be difficult. When you say "seal her up and go," are you suggesting there is no need to fill the void?
One way to get a rough estimate of weight is to take bathroom scales and weigh the front then weigh the back combine the weights and you'll have a rough guesstiamte of the weight.
As far as the spongy spot, it is where the fiberglass has became detached from the the foam. If it is a severe bubble I say fix it, if it is slight, slight meaning that you can only push it in about a 1/16" or so I would probably not worry about it. If you go around your boat with a screw driver and tap on it, you'll probably find many of these areas (Dead or hollow spots) you weren't aware of therefore not concerned about.
Mine has hollow spots in the floor, sides (about the registration number area), bottom. Some I've address due to the fact they were considerable or rather I could push them in well over an 1/8" or more like a 1/4".
The bathroom scale trick sounds good and will give me a better idea on the weight. I think I'll just continue to prep the interior as planned and wait and see what happens when I flip the boat over to work on the hull. If there is water in there I assume it will pour out of the holes I drilled into the deck. If not, I'll just fill them after I finish painting the hull.
The water will not just pour out; unfortunately it is trap in areas that may not be readily accessible. The foam that is in the hull is a closed cell foam and water that is trap is most times just that trapped in a specific area. I drilled holes and even cut a rectangular section then ran a dehumidifier but even this extreme will only get some water out. The only sure fire way to get water out( in my opinion) is to cut reliefs out in the floor and drill holes in the bottom them park it on a black top during the summer. Don't worry about it as you'll read in many post all whalers have some water in them, it's the nature of the beast that rides the waves.
Copied from another site originally posted there by Macfam.
I just finished a repair to the 1987 13� Super Sport:
I recently bought this boat (Nov 2003), and the hull is in excellent shape EXCEPT I discovered a �soft spot.� This spot is where one would step while using the anchor locker. Under weight, the interior floor would flex (depress) about a � inch. This was a section approx. 12�x18�. When this flexing occurred, you could feel the floor re-contact the foam below.
What caused this is anyone�s guess:
1. Possibly water seeping in and freezing and thawing to expand and de-laminating these two surfaces.
The source of any water could be from the anchor locker drain, which until last week was not �lined� with a tube, but just a drilled hole from the locker to the interior of the boat.
2. Possibly as a small �non-bonding� defect between the interior hull and foam that simply worsened over time. This boat has a dark blue mooring cover, and lots of heat can build up on hot summer days, that could make a small problem bigger.
I was considering leaving it alone, but Tom Clark suggested not letting it go. As always, you get the right advice here on the CW forum.
In any event, I placed some duct tape, and I drilled a 1/8in dia. hole about 2 inches from the anchor locker through the interior floor. When I did, there was a �puff� of very strong resin aroma. Perhaps this �air pocket� just never really bonded properly. After that hole was drilled, the flexing became much easier. This leads me to conclude that this area had been air tight, and drilling broke the airtight seal. Which begs the question: If it was air tight, did water ever get in?
In addition, I drilled a second hole at the other further end of the damaged area. I put a wet-vac to the hole, and never detected any water what-so-ever. With enough suction, the floor would quickly depress and lay firmly against the foam below. I taped in place some clear plastic film over the two holes, and after two days, there was no moisture condensing on the plastic. This too, leads me to believe that this was not a water intrusion case.
The fix:
I increased the furthest aft hole to nearly � in dia. just so a �chalking gun cartridge tip� would fit snugly in that hole. The hole toward the bow remained at 1/8in. Both holes had been drilled through duct tape.
This is when a couple of extra hands really pay off. My buddy Phil mixed the West System, with slow hardener 206, and placed it in an empty chalking gun cartridge. I placed the tip in the larger hole and pumped it in. Each cartridge holds approx. 10 oz., I continued to pump in West Systems epoxy until it began to ooze out of the front hole. A total of 5 cartridges or 50 oz.
I gently put some pressure on the area, let the epoxy ooze out (that�s where the duct tape protects the non-skid floor) wiped up any excess, and placed a screw in each hole. It did heat up a bit while curing, but nothing harmful. The next day I removed the screws, and used "Rockland Tan" gel coat from mini-craft in the screw holes.
The result:
The floor area is solid as a rock, with no deformity and no flexing. The gel coat covered the screw holes nicely. West Systems Tech Department assured me that the epoxy would have no ill effect on the foam.
I am very pleased with the way this came out. Glad I didn�t put it off.
I then could install the mahogany interior that was restored over the winter. Stripped and 9 coats of Z-spar Flagship. Once the bottom is painted�I�ll be sending pictures!!
