Head compartment

In these photos this is far from being done; but I was just fooling about with the camera and took some photos of the head area to record progress.


This is the head sink, which, as all H25 owners know, the boat did not originally come with.

The stainless-steel basin came from an old Chris-Craft; I bought it on eBay for $19.00.  Its drain goes through the forward bulkhead-- to get out of the foot area-- and then to a trap and down to the drain seacock.

The after portion of this countertop (to the left) lifts up for access to a 4-inch-deep compartment above the foot of the bunk.  The two openings outboard of the sink are for toiletries and towels.  The little mahogany stick on the forward bulkhead, inside the locker, is the cleat for the shelf in there.  The shelf divider is sitting against the hull.

I put the tissue dispenser in there to calculate the space for it; but I certainly won't rely on a cardboard tissue dispenser to be kept in the head, under the large foredeck hatch, aboard a 25-ft boat!

There is no headliner or hullliner in place in this photo.  The trim is not installed here either.

The wiring isn't really this messy-- it's just dangling down from the connections block above this doorway where the spar wiring enters the cabin and the cross-cabin circuits pass by.  When it is connected properly you won't see the danging bits in and out of the lockers.


This Wilcox-Crittenden Head-Mate toilet was given to me by a guy called Bill who was working on his friend's boat in Hancock's Harbor, NJ.  I saw it sitting outside the boat on a Sunday and left a note on it: 'If you are getting rid of this toilet, call me and I'll take it.'  The guy called me as soon as he returned to the boat.  It pumps perfectly well-- they must have been switching to either a larger bowl or just an electric one.  The intake/flush lever is a little rusty; that's all I can find wrong with it.

I had intended to mount my existing 'Frankentoilet' with the crossover sanitation pipe underneath this blue shelf; so the shelf is mounted a little higher than it would otherwise be.  Unfortunately this toilet's pump doesn't mount on the level; it mounts at a slight angle (like a modern Jabsco) on an angled flange on the crossover pipe.  So I can't mount this pump on the shelf, with the crossover pipe underneath, because it won't sit flush.  I have no idea why Wilcox did it like this.  I really wish I were reusing the original Raritan Compact Mk I; but this is similarly 'retro' and works fine-- and best of all the price was right.

The two little openings under the shelf are meant for access to the bolts; and this was supposed to accommodate the crossover pipe underneath so these would allow for cleaning out as well.

Behind the toilet the black ring is a Starboard trim piece around the exit pipe (PVC) leading to the holding tank.

The all-plastic Rubbermaid tool box is actually in its intended place-- this V-berth area has become a true forepeak, having room for only one to sleep but getting equipped with a tool box, workbench, hanging locker, microwave oven, plenty of outlets for charging cordless tools and possibly also a fresh-water supply tank for flushing the toilet. The holding tank is underneath, with most of the plumbing and all but one of the boat's through-hulls.  And that's in only the aftermost 26 inches of it! [wink]

The mahogany in the foreground is the backup to the compression post, underneath where the maststep really is.  It's a piece of the stock I cut for the cabintop handrails, but here it is solid except for only one hand hole (through which the vacuum cleaner's cord is running).  I gauged this hand-hold for someone sitting on the potty and only after installing the stick I realized that the head door's latch has to go at the very same elevation-- so when you reach through it you will stub your fingertips on the edge of the latch plate.  Oh, well.

At the time this was taken the lockers behind the toilet were taken up with the stereo, the outlet strip and the lift-out panels for all the lockers about the boat.

The bronze Barlow selftailing winch (vintage 1977) is a leftover from Warren Luhrs' C44 cutter and served as a doorstop in my mother's bathroom for about 20 years.  It's now slated to be the foredeck-mounted anchor-rode winch for a first-generation Hunter 25 called Diana.  Funny how things turn out!

Here is an 'aerial' shot of this space, minus the toilet, taken from the foredeck hatch opening. 

The door jamb, to the right, was excessively tedious.  It is a T-section and has to fit a very awkward three-sided space and accommodate the natural crookedness of the boat as-is.  It turns out that the face of the head's sink cabinet (side of the port-side berth's footwell) is neither in one plane (it's twisted) nor parallel to really... anything.  Fitting delicate mahogany (the lower portion of that stick is 5/16" square) to a crooked boat is an exercise in near-futility.  But I got it to fit!


The threshold of this doorway is somewhat more robust.  If it appears crooked, it's because the main bulkhead of the boat is not square to the centerline.  Believe it or not that threshold is in the only place it can be to make the (not yet built) door work.

I still have to countersink those screw-holes to fit them with plugs; but I'm keeping it as removable in case something happens with the door later.

The rough plywood sole is only temporary.  The finger-hole, however, will be in the finished mahogany panel.  It's the drain for the space, as there'll be a shower hose here too.


The black square is the pedal for the Whale Gusher foot pump for the head sink.  It feeds from only the port tank, however, despite being likely to be the most-used water source in the boat.

In the foregound (top right of photo) you see the coaming for the foredeck hatch, not yet varnished.

I like the deep-blue/white/black/stainless/mahogany decor theme of this boat.  It's bright, cheerful, nautical and traditional.

* * *

Removing holes from aluminum spars

One vital consideration concerning aluminum spars is that they derive all their strength from skin stiffness.  Aluminum can and will bend; but as the molecules shift about it's important to not give them anywhere to go that they should not be.  This means all extra holes in an aluminum spar will weaken it.

My boat came with the then-common 1970s slab-reefing system consisting of a genoa track mounted on the boom, a cheek block mounted on a slide, and a Cunningham hook above the gooseneck.  The single-line reefing system as depicted in the Schaefer catalogue and elsewhere makes infinitely more sense, not only for sail trim but for simplicity and even safety.  Properly located, the parts of single-line reefing will contribute to a very efficient sail shape for the reefed sail and give one the ability to effect the reef from only one place-- in my boat's case, the safety of the bridge deck and main hatch.

To remove the parts of the old system required the filling of some two dozen holes on the boom and elsewhere.  Certainly one could weld these and have an excellent-- though expensive-- reconditioned boom.  Honestly I never thought of that; but I knew I'd have to fill them somehow.

Then Jeremiah, in the shop, suggested just using aluminum screws, threading them into the holes, and breaking them off to file them smooth.  The sheer simplicity of this idea just blew me away.  After all, so long as the holes are filled with something that can't shift-- thus prohibiting the molecules from moving too far-- it does not matter how you fill them.

Amazing Grace, the C48, came into the shop for a refit and I got the job of preparing the booms for refinishing.  As part of the job the aluminum screws were ordered; as soon as the necessary holes were filled I took off with the broken-off bolts and reused them all on my own boat. After all they only need to be long enough to thread into the wall thickness of the spar.


This first photo is not great, owing to glare; but the aluminum screws sticking out of the side of the boom (spar to the left) are visible. Most of these were for the reefing track.

The black tape marks where the sheetline bail will go.

In this photo you can see where a few of the screws have already been broken off.  I sawed most of the way through each one and then bent them with pliers to snap them off.  These screws are 1/4-20 thread.  They can break off when you're about 2/3 through them with the hacksaw.  The best idea is to saw them as close as possible to the surface of the spar-- but you'll have to choose one thread of the screw as the hacksaw blade will choose one for you otherwise.

The red stuff is Loctite 'permanent' (not my blood; that's elsewhere).  A caveat: the Loctite will work only if the hole is the right size for the screw and decently threaded.  Don't count on the Loctite to fill gaps (or even to stick if there are gaps).  If there is too much play, you can use epoxy (perhaps with a little filling compound) instead.

Here is the side of the boom after the screws were broken off and sanded over.  Can you see where they were? --for you certainly can't feel where they were with your hand.

Here is a close-up of the side of the boom, with a better view of the filled-in screw holes (silver circles).  I sanded these by hand-- 80-grit production paper takes the nubs down quickly and easily.  You will see a trace of greasy-looking aluminum residue following your sanding-- this tells you that you are actually sanding the end of the screw.  When you see the surface of the boom going silver you've come to the end (as you see how I hit it here).

I changed to 120 grit and then to 220 to polish these off.  As I will shortly be applying etcher, primer and paint I'll be able to further fair these places, should they need it, at any point during the future stages.




I filled the holes for the winch bases on the mast as well.  Since those holes were a bit too big to accommodate 10-24s any more, I drilled them all out to 1/4-20 (I should have used 12-24 but didn't think of it!).  In installing the winch bases on the mast again, to avoid running afoul of the old (now filled) holes, I can relocate them.  The open holes shown here are the new ones drilled to reuse the old mast bases in new locations.

(The pole in the back is the fence, not the spreaders!)

* * *

Internal pole lift

Since this boat is so small, it's unlikely I'll ever have a proper whole-cockpit awning without setting it over the mainsail cover.  So when in the ICW or anywhere that calls for more powering than sailing, I won't have the opportunity to set any sail to assist the motor other than the jib itself, which is too far forward to allow the boat to balance under the one sail alone.  What's needed is a smaller sail more centrally set, fore-and-aft, that can pull reasonably well on most points of sail in light air... like an inner forestaysail.  And, more importantly, it will also serve to take over when/if the motor fails.

This is more important than most people realize.  A prudent mariner should never enter a dodgy or unfamiliar harbor with the mainsail cover drawn and snapped closed and the headsail bagged or lashed to the deck.  (I know-- most people will claim that having a roller-furling headsail resolves this.  But the point still bears consideration.)  In such a state, if you were to suffer an engine failure you'd be hard-pressed to get anything up and drawing air before you crashed or went aground.  It's a matter of simple seamanship.

I've had the idea to have a regular spinnaker-pole lift that can also be used as a halyard for a small jib, what I call the 'canal sail', something small but useful to assist the motor, provide safety and redundancy and maintain steerage in freaky currents and conditions.  I decided to use the former winch mount on the starboard side of the mast and to reuse the old Seaboard halyard winch for this.  (The port side gets another winch base and a Lewmar #6; more on this later).

This exit block came from DAMCO (Dwyer Aluminum Mast CO.)  These people are the very best in the business, helpful, sensible and economical.  This block cost $26.00 and handles 5/16" line (actually 3/8" would fit but oughtn't be loaded to capacity).  A Schaefer one is over $90.00.  I cut this hole and mounted this thing using tapped 10-24 screws; it will get removed when it comes time for paint and then reinstalled.

I calculated the location using an original 1973 blueprint of this boat's sail plan which Skip Moorhouse, sailmaker and first owner of Hunter 25 hull no. 1, let me inspect.  Assuming a theoretical inner forestay about 3'9" aft of the headstay, it would land on the foredeck about 4' aft of the headstay plate.  So the place for this block is about 9'7" down from the top of the mast.  In this way I could, if I chose to, fit a tang here to accommodate an inner forestay and running backstays and so configure this little boat as a bona-fide cutter.  I just figure if you're going to install something like this, you might as well make some sense of it, if only in theory.

At the other end I have to add an exit plate on the starboard side, rather high up in order ti lead it down to the winch.  The existing two exit plates are for the two main halyards.

In reusing the old Seaboard winch I have to keep in mind that the handle for it is a hexagonal drive, unlike modern standard square-drive winches.  Apparently in the early days of top-action winches (about 1968-1978), there was no standard top-drive handle format (sounds eerily familiar to the development patterns of other technology!).  Fortunately I have one of these handles; though it might have been easy enough to just use the Seaboard winch as a snubbing winch and use arm strength to cleat it tightly each time-- it's only a pole lift on a 10-ft pole.  But now I have to ensure that I have room on the spar for two handle holders, one for each handle.

* * *

Some inconveniences are beyond counting

I once told my young brother-in-law, as he was building some plastic model airplane and complaining about glue on his fingertips, that to do a good job sometimes you have to love your project more than you care for your self.  This is especially true when it comes to convenience-- after all, most of the things we love are patently inconvenient.  And yet we pursue them anyway; and in this pursuit is how we acknowledge their value to us.

This photo is not great; it's intended to show the nice fat mahogany splinter I got in my foot.  (How? --I wasn't even barefoot.)  In this one week I got this splinter and another as well, tore my fingertips on a jigsaw blade (it was not running), jammed the meat of my hand in the drill-press chuck and mysteriously gashed my leg which bled all over the project in process.

The West Marine sticker is on my daughter's laptop.

Here is the top of the cabin, with no hatch or hatch shroud in place, the day I was fastening down the new hatch-slider rails.  The green tape along a piece of wood is a dam to keep epoxy from coursing down the side of the cabin and over the windows (already let that happen once, so never again!).  I had noticed a stickiness whenever I was kneeling a certain way but in the semi-mad rush to get the sticks into position and screwed down I attributed it to something stuck to my leg.  Only when I was done the most urgent part of it did I happen to notice the red stuff, which I then concluded was blood.

That's the foredeck's hatch coaming in the distance.  At the time of this photo the hatch shroud was being used to cover up that opening-- that's it even farther beyond.

Below you can see something of the main cabin, the compression post, the settee and head trim, and whatnot.


So I took this photo downwards at my leg, probably just to record the solution to the mystery.

Here I am standing up on the quarter berth, my other foot on the ladder step.  The quarter berth is (at this time) the current lumberyard.  The gap below my foot is the 'wet locker,' the one place inside the accommodation that goes straight to the hull skin itself.  Over this I would like to make a panel of slats, like the white-pine ceiling we make for C44s.  On the side of the ladder, behind my leg, goes the stainless-steel double hook to hang up wet foulies.  On the teak cabin face behind me is already another of these hooks.


You can see the cooler under the bottom shelf of the ladder; its cover is accessible when you lift the shelf.  A Fastpin stuck through a hole in the ladder side holds it up.  It's made so that if one should descend the ladder while the shelf is up the shelf won't stick out so far so as to catch a heel and break off-- although it does mean there won't be a second shelf in place for the one coming down.

Also two sections of the three-part cabin sole are visible here.  At the time of this photo the center section is just rough plywood-- it'll be varnished mahogany later.

* * *

Cockpit-seat lockers

These are some older photos that never got posted under any specific topic.  In most cases there has been much progress since these were taken.

1. Here is a view into the port side locker, what used to be the fuel-tank locker.  As I have said before, this area was so soggy when I acquired the boat that I removed the bulkhead and shelf with bare hands-- really; no tools needed!  The bulkhead was formerly under the drip rail to the right.  I made a new bulkhead about 8 inches farther aft, to make the quarter berth about 6'4" or 6'5"; the foot of it is under this shelf, which, with a fiddle installed, will hold winch handles and the like.

In this photo the shelf is holding a plastic bulkhead vent fitting which I may end up not using and a length of SS angle intended for the backstay's backing plates (since substituted with aluminum).

Outboard is a little box/shelf I made to hold quart cans of paint, solvent, 2-stroke oil, and whatever.  It drains into the area farther inboard.

I really hate black 5200-- it always looks unclean and messy somehow.  But it's what I had; and this will all be painted in white Bilgekote.

The port-side battery's breather tube comes up through the box/shelf and extends up like a snorkel to within a few inches of the underside of the coaming (the PVC coupling seen on the shelf is for that).  The battery is under the main-cabin settee.

The after bulkhead replaces the one that was there holding up the fuel-tank shelf.  The 3" hole will accommodate a ventilation tube leading from the Dorade box (after of the tiller head) to the foot of the quarter berth.  This will be PVC, as it should be rigid to keep from being damaged when stuff gets dropped or thrown into this locker.

You can see the bodged-up job the PO did in increasing the size of the openings in the hatch's drip rail.  The real reason he had such leaks is because he had cut out the drip rail itself along the outboard side of the hatch to accommodate overly-big hinge bolts.  I patched this, not prettily, but adequately to lend it strength.  This will get sanded and reshaped prior to paint.


2. This is a look straight down at the starboard-side locker.  At one time the fresh-water tank was under a platform at the forward end of this space.  It was not there when I acquired the boat.  My new fresh-water tanks go under the main-cabin settees.  I fitted this shelf in here to lend stiffness to the hull the way the quarter berth does on the other side.  All major flats and verticals should be structurally bonded to the hull-- they all help.

For access under this shelf I made two lift-out panels.  I really cannot think of what I would put down there, as the top of this shelf will be full of things like life jackets, mooring line, fenders and a folding bike.  The inboard opening without a cover (left side of the pic) is for the engine-starting battery.  A standard-sized battery box fits into here with its ear handles holding it from sinking all the way through.  Of course this will get screwed in place-- and a strap fitted over the cover when the battery is installed-- as well.

The little block of mahogany is a step I made on top of the edge of the stiffening rib so that, for the many times I have climbed down this hole for access under the cockpit and aft, there is something to step and lean upon that is more substantial than the knife-edge of a piece of 3/8" plywood.  (My back is grateful for this!)

Under the cockpit at the lower edge of the photo you see the black plastic (Tempo) fuel tank, which is 11.5 or 12 gallons.  It sits on a plywood shelf, the edge of which protrudes a bit this side.  As it is located, the tank is about one inch off center but otherwise fits perfectly, with all access points at the after end for vent, sender, feed and fill.

The openings in this hatch's drip rail were enlarged too but not as clumsily as the ones on the port side; I filled and faired these as well.

3. This is a look from inside the starboard-side locker, looking forward.  You see the two lift-outs and the hole for the battery box.  All of this has received one coat of Interlux Bilgekote; it'll get another coat before it's done.

The things in the forward corner are a brass tube, which will be installed in that bulkhead, down by the hull, to admit bilge water from this compartment to where the bilge pump is, and the ends of the PVC tubes that lead to the electric and manual bilge-pump pickups.  I made this section of them in PVC because it would be nightmarish to thread any replacement hose through this route once the boat is done.  PVC can be assembled in pieces, in place, so even in the unlikely event that the PVC might fail it too can be replaced after being hacksawed out.  From this point hose, with check valves to avoid backfill, will lead towards the transom outlets.  The vertical PVC tube mounted on the plywood block is the starboard-side battery's breather which extends up to within a few inches of the underside of the deck.  The battery is located under the settee berth.

The wooden bulkhead is the back side of the teak plywood bonded to the inside of the cabin back.  It extends down below the galley counter back here and provides a surface to which to fasten wiring and other stuff.  In this plywood will be fitted the on-off switch for the engine-starting battery, so one can reach down to the galley from the main hatch and switch it on or off.  Also the wine lockers will be mounted in this bulkhead (more on that later).

The long skinny shelf along the side of the cockpit (to left in the photo) will get a varnished-mahogany fiddle to hold stuff (mainly because I have plenty of countertop-fiddle stock).  This shelf was installed to seal the under-cockpit locker from potential fuel fumes (the tank is out of view just to the left of the camera).  This whole compartment gets vented via a Rule #140 blower and a hose leading to the Dorade box.

Just forward of the drip rail (angled feature at top left in photo) in the cockpit side will be mounted the throttle and shift for the motor; so those cables will run straight towards where I was holding the camera here.  Also the Whale manual bilge pump gets mounted in the cockpit side just to the left of the camera.


* * *

JC's secret system for filling deck-core rot

I recently posted a comment responding to a core-fixing issue on the Hunter Owners Web.  I think this is valuable for most fiberglass-boat owners to consider.  Here is the whole text.

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JC:

I filled all of the 'rotted'/'questionable'-core spots on my deck with epoxy. It's so rigid you could hold a teenagers' hip-hop dance party on it.

Once I made a mistake and began filling too close after a rainstorm. I don't know what I was thinking; but when I [pumped with the syringe] I saw that the epoxy actually pushed the water up to the surface. I was very surprised-- thought I had wandered into a really fine mess. What I found was that by continuing to inject epoxy, the ugly baby-vomit-looking water/epoxy slime that migrated upwards eventually stopped-- all the water (and not very much had ever got in) was gone and now the epoxy was doing its job, saturating to the bottom of the void and filling towards the top. The result was a deck area as stiff as any of the other places I have filled.

The only drawbacks to my system of 'drilling and filling' is that epoxy weighs more than does foam or balsa. In very large repairs the weight difference could be a problem. In my 40 years of boatbuilding experience I have never found a point at which this is a problem. The sides of a small production sailboat's cabin are just not enough volume to warrant worry about any increase in weight. The average owner's toolbox would probably negate any theoretical savings.

While it is very true that 'Water migrates very far from the point of entry' [mentioned by the original poster], it is also true that epoxy does the same thing, perhaps even better than does water. Penetrating epoxy is made to do this. I have been filling voids successfully with epoxy since I first heard of the stuff in the 1970s and the only significant mess I ever encountered was when the epoxy would not seem to stop sucking in, and more and more got pumped in with the syringe, until I happened to notice an uninstalled drawer sitting in the pilot-berth area with one whole corner full of the stuff. Through the tiny voids between plywood edge-grain and the fiberglass, the epoxy had migrated 10 or 12 feet along the flange of the boat (and fortunately found something to drip into that was more or less replaceable). To this day that part of the flange on that boat is probably the strongest hull-deck joint we've ever had on one of those boats.

I would trust WEST epoxy with any wood-to-wood or wood-to-raw-fiberglass joint with my life-- and, oh, wait-- I do; because my boat has been restored, remodeled and improved based on that ethic.

 

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A friend, Pilot, then asked me:

'Can you describe the process and the materials you would use. Specifically the typical hole size drilled the distance between holes and the number of holes for a given area. I've read other articles for epoxy injection but would like a builders take on this process.

'My boat was surveyed 3 years ago and an area around the windlass was found to have an elevated moisture level. Rather than pull the windlass and start replacing plywood core and all that's involved in that, injecting may be the solution that stems the moisture migration and solidifies the deck.

'My own personal thoughts on wet core and soft decks is, it's a distraction, and after 37 years of sailing on many different boats some that I've owned I have never seen a catastrophic failure based on moisture or soft decks.'

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So I told him (writing a veritable book into the process!):

If you know there is water present you can drill a hole-- only through the fiberglass layer(s)-- from one side or the other and then apply a vacuum hose to suck it out. This works surprisingly well-- it's the first step I recommend in fixing rotted outboard-skiff transoms. They all rot (motorboaters don't seem to care for their boats like we do ours); and this is the best way to save them. (I am doing my motor bracket's backing board the same way.) You then drill a few smaller holes, sized to fit the syringe, maybe about 3/16" or 1/4", into the top of the transom and pump in the stuff.

I used to thin the epoxy with acetone (not what Gougeon Brothers recommend; though when I told of them of this they said 'Who are we to argue with the Cherubinis about treating wood?" ) But you really do not need to thin it; as it's only doing its job by penetrating the way it does.

You might go cautiously at first, with just a little (3-5 pumps' worth?)-- it will migrate down. When it comes out the hole you drilled for the water, at the bottom, you know it's done what it should (and you know the transom was toast). Next batch, tape over the hole and after it's kicked off, go for broke and really pump it in.

For a deck, you do basically the same thing. You might drill a hole into the underside for your vacuum hose. Tape it securely to make an 'airtight' seal-- I have done this adequately enough with duct tape-- and run it till the vacuum cleaner's motor labors. For Diana I knew the deck to be already dried-out (but for a mistake involving a recent rain, as I said). Be sure to plug up or tape over any openings in the underside-- for the epoxy will definitely find them. You might station a partner below to watch for drips! --and be very wary of when you are pumping in tons of epoxy and apparently making no progress! Spots to watch are along the flange/toerail seam and anywhere silcone (or something worse) was used to bed down through-bolted deck hardware.

Topside, you drill a few holes to begin (you can always drill more if you think you have to). The best tactic is to choose a spot, maybe a few square feet and outboard (low) on the deck, drill pilot holes-- into the core only (mark the bitt with tape if you're worried, to be sure)-- near the highest border of the spot, and fill till you see the epoxy is no longer soaking down in your pilot holes. Don't make the mistake I've made too many times and go silly drilling too many holes-- when the epoxy makes it down to the lower holes you get a dribbling mess all over.

I generally make the holes about 4 inches apart; but it depends on the size of the area you are working with and how serious the rot is inside the core. In theory even rotted core is still 'there'; and epoxy will bond very well with wood or foam dust. As I said before, it is heavier than core material; but as I said too it's never been a terrible concern in the proportions we're talking about. For odd isolated areas it is a very solid, reliable, permanent fix. And if you do not get it all, the parts you do get remain strong and make a good base or boundary for you to fill other places.

If you choose to drill only in places where there is nonskid, you have only to fair over the holes and repaint the nonskid patches. For my deck, which was pretty bad, I resigned myself to repainting the whole deck (with Perfection) and I was redesigning the pattern of the nonskid patches anyway. The little indentations left when the epoxy is done flowing in can be faired with Marine-Tex or epoxy with silica gel, either of which will be rugged enough to not fall out in future and will be able to take paint (after the usual proper prep). Gelcoat, being polyester-based, will not stick well to epoxy (though the reverse is true). So in using epoxy you've pretty much given over the hope of refairing the affected area in polyester- (or vinylester-) based products.

This system should also be used any time you have to mount or re-mount hardware to a cored deck. Drill a pilot hole-- only through the fiberglass to the core-- for each mounting screw and fill it. Do the same in the area under the bit of hardware, like a winch and especially anything in compression or tension, like a padeye or halyard-lead block. When it's cured, drill through the solid-epoxy core you've just filled and bed down the part with 5200-- which will keep out water, hold like crazy especially in shear or tension, and provide needed flexibility. In many cases you will need only fair-sized fender washers with the under-deck locknuts because the epoxy block you just made can serve as an adequate backing plate, especially for anything in shear, like cleats and halyard stoppers.

I had doubts about the integrity of my hull after I rebedded the keel and so drilled a few exploratory holes into the bottom strata, between the keel bolts, to probe them with epoxy. This was supposed to be only solid fiberglass; and it was. No hole took more than a fraction of the syringe's worth. It was-- and is-- solid.

For Diana I had made a new, short little bulkhead at the back end of the cabin sole on which I stood the ladder/cooler shelf structure. I used 'high-quality' 3/4" MDO for it. Within too short a time this board was rotten from water behind it (from the cockpit-seat locker leaks), even though it had been well saturated (so I thought) before I installed it. (I blame it on using Dave's MAS and not my own WEST epoxy. MAS just does not penetrate as well; period.) Removing the bulkhead was out of the question; and it could not stay like it was. I drilled pilot holes down into the top edge of the plywood, straight into the depths of the laminations, just like I would have done for a plywood motorboat transom, and poured in the epoxy. It took three or four tries and made an awful mess (the stuff ran straight through the spoiled core and gushed out the bottom edge, finding gaps in the 5200 and dribbling into the bilge, where it glued down a stray PVC fitting that I still haven't ground completely away) but I sorted it and now it's solid.

I think this is a good solution for your [Pilot's] windlass mounting bolts. Given enough epoxy in the surrounding core, it will take the very severe shock and shear loads very well. Once epoxy has found something to latch onto-- the rough inner surface of the fiberglass deck, the rotten core, the remnants of any plywood-- it will stay in place and provide a very sturdy inner stratum through which you can drill even big bolt holes. And it takes 5200 very well, adds stiffness, and displaces all gaps that might otherwise find condensation or stray moisture. The one thing it does not do well is flex-- but for a windlass mount you had better not have much flex (let the nylon rode take the shock loads!) and a rigid deck is always stronger and thus more secure underfoot than one that moves and flexes to the point of fatiguing the glass fibers within and weirds you out when you step on something you'd prefer to feel solid.

Epoxy and wood = perfect together.  :)

Surprise, surprise

Here on poor Diana the V-berth area has been the last part of the interior to get any attention at all.  One of the first things I did was to install the holding tank under the after end of the bunk; but since then it's been partially dismantled and not much has been done here.  (Stay tuned for a forthcoming post on this compartment when the through-hulls go in.)  The V-berth area has been used as a lumber bay for too long.  The other day I cleared it all out and stashed the usable lumber (mahogany, spruce and white pine) in the house's attic.  By the time I had swept and vacuumed out the V-berth area I felt like I had got a huge load off my conscience.  Suddenly there is actual space in this boat!

And the boat must have lost 200 lbs as well!

Here is a (lousy) photo of the V-berth right after I swept and vacuumed (for the first time in I won't say how long!).  The 5-gallon pail full of wood bits (mostly Honduras mahogany) is the only remainder of the once daunting heap that formerly occupied this space.













While laying out the forepeak lockers (more on this later too) I observed that the 3/8"-plywood bunktop felt distressingly flimsy.  Just kneeling on it was enough to bend it far too much out of level for my liking.  I have already done all the other bunktops, removing the old cleats for the lift-out panels, installing new ones saturated and bonded with epoxy and peppering each one with plenty of #8 screws.  Each time the bunktop has become stronger and stiffer.  If these bunktops are 'glassed to the hull-- and they are-- they should be structural members in their own right-- and so they are, now.

Hunter used plain white-pine 1x2s for lift-out cleats, the same as you buy at Lowe's or Home Depot.  Some of them had edges that had been smoothly routered to about a 1/4" radius, in order to protect your knuckles when you are rummaging about in the compartment.  But even if they were glued to the plywood with wood glue (and some of them, like the V-berth ones, were not) they were merely painted with Pettit Fiberglass Undercoater and otherwise left alone.  In the middle compartment under the V-berth, three of the cleats were sound enough that they did not require replacement (at least, not today).  The cleat along the aft edge was both too loose and too short to lend much stiffness of the bunktop.  So I removed it and fashioned another one out of a piece of 1x3, essentially the full width of the bunk at that point (about 34").  Properly fastened (with screws and then cured epoxy) it will stiffen the whole structure.

Inside this compartment was a straggling bit of old electrical wiring, leading through the bilge to the rode locker for the port and starboard running lights in the hull.  All right; first, I never run wiring through the bilge.  All my new wiring is run under the hull-to-deck flange.  There it's accessible and out of the muck.  Second, this wiring is red and black, and also 16-gauge, neither of which is code for boats any more; so I have run all new red-and-yellow 14-gauge and so this wire is redundant.  And, third, I am not reusing the port and starboard running lights in the hull.  They are too small and too low to be of much use except when motoring through a calm harbor at night.  Diana will get a one-light red-and-green unit, with an LED bulb, mounted on the pulpit.

I tugged and tugged on the wire and realized I could not pull it out.  Sure enough, the wire disappeared through the middle compartment's forward bulkhead, passed through the dead-air space and emerged at the bottom of the rode locker.  Obviously the entire interior structure was assembled outside the boat-- and all the wiring stapled to where it should be-- and then installed in the hull in as close to a completed state as possible.  This is how Hunter built five of these boats each week.

Now I despise all dead-air spaces on boats.  If it's inaccessible to humans, rest assured it won't be to humidity, bugs and bilge water.  Who knows what might be going on inside there?  And an application of Murphy's Law ensures that if you have a problem leak, or hidden rot, or a bug infestation, it's going to be in the one compartment into which you cannot readily get.  I had already resolved to open this compartment, at first by installing an 8" clean-out plate and then, in interests of simplicity and economy, just cutting a lift-out hatch into it and adding fiddles.  Also it would give me the chance to inspect it and to apply some epoxy to what I was sure was bare plywood in there.

Following this philosophy I have already cut access holes into the feet of the settee berths which extend through the main bulkhead.  Formerly these spaces were inaccessible and yet open for leading wiring and attracting humidity and bugs.  Now the one to port is convenient for installing and maintaining the Whale footpump for the head sink.  Both these new-found compartments are done now-- but one lacks a lift-out panel as I just do not have any scrap 3/8" plywood, since I don't like to use it for much of anything.  I do have some specific need for a sheet of it soon (more on that later) and will remake a lot of the old lift-outs till it's all gone.

I laid out an opening of about 9 inches square and rocked the jigsaw in to avoid drilling 3/8" starter holes and to save the cutout to use as the lift-out panel.  A can of Krylon supplied the corners' radius.  The piece of plywood came out perfectly-- and then, for the first time in 37-1/2 years, a human being gazed in at the compartment beyond.  And-- what a surprise.

This photo shows the space after I sanded some of the fatigued paint and got ready to install the new cleats.  At the forward end is the new hatch, about 9 inches square.  It might serve as a secondary rode locker if my idea of the plastic trash cans doesn't happen.  This is one storage space Diana now has that most H25 owners don't even know about!  The bare wood at an angle in the center compartment is the new white-pine cleat that just happens to be lying in the space (had to check if it was not too wide for it).
Having seen the top photo you will notice I started peeling off the old hull liner.  This chore is not particularly hazardous but really makes a mess.  I have invented a vacuum attachment that has a 6" putty trowel and a tube for a handle that plugs into the vacuum hose, expressly for doing chipping work (what we at CBC called 'pachippulating') like this.  I'll try it out here (rest of hull liner is already off).  Really the hull liner up here is not in such bad shape and you can see it's had good adhesion.  But it's dry and a little crispy and Lord knows how clean it is.  I am replacing it with the 'Irish tweed' stuff from Defender.

What I found in this cubbyhole was remarkable.  I had been particularly distressed because the accumulated junk, that had been condemned to remain in the middle compartment till I cleared out the lumber, included a two-foot length of rope that was sopping wet.  From where did the water come?  The rest of the compartment appeared dry.  The bits of scrap wood in there with the rope were damp but nowhere near as wet as the rope.  The hawsepipe on the deck is taped over against weather.  All I can account for is that the holes from the stem fitting that was removed (see them in the top photo) are still open, though on a negative angle, and rain and snow must have been blowing in there all autumn and winter and running down through the rode locker and the dead-air space to the second compartment (though I never noticed water in the holding-tank one beyond, to which all of the forward ones drain).

But, no worries.  The dark-green glass of the inside of the hull, at the very end of the bilge, appears sound, strong and-- most surprisingly-- dry.  Even more surprising, so does the plywood.  It is not damp or dark or even smelly.  For some unfathomable reason the untreated wood, which should have been a totally gooky mess in a compartment that admits drainage water but no air, has remained bone-dry and free of rot and mildew for over three and a half decades.

This 'first look' at the newly excavated space shows perfectly healthy dark-green fiberglass resin, a tight layup, no evidence of water intrusion or delamination and, best of all, no damp or rotting plywood-- even though the plywood surfaces were all unfinished (and I mean RAW plywood-- no paint, resin or-- had Providence intervened-- epoxy (which maybe no one but my dad had heard of in 1974).

The little black circles on the bunktop are my marks for the screw holes.  There seem like so many! --but keep in mind four pieces of wood have to be installed here.

The grey stuff along the one side looks like oozed-out deck putty.  I do not think (nor hope) it's a mud-dauber nest!  But really there could have been anyone living in here; and there is no one.

The stick lying at the forward end is an old cleat being reused as the new forward cleat, yet to be installed in this photo.  I always make cleats as long or wide as possible to add stiffness across the crosswise grain of the merely-3/8"-thick plywood.  Properly adhered, a new cleat does wonders.

I reused another removed cleat for the after one of this hole.  Being 1x2 stock (1-1/2" wide) it goes smack up against the forward face of the after bulkhead of this compartment (at the bottom of the photo).  I planned it like this when I laid out the opening.  This way the after edge of that cleat is adhered with epoxy to the face of the bulkhead itself.  In many cases the tops of such bulkheads are where moisture intrudes to generate rot, since the bottom edges, along the hull, are typically better treated when the boat is assembled.  I really do not relish the thought of replacing an under-bunk bulkhead, especially when it's so easy to avoid ever having to do it.

The bits of plywood to the sides are a piece of scrap that I found in the 5-gallon pail of blocks and cut to fit (notice the one under the flash came from the end of the other).  I don't care about their shape-- you only see the parallel edges in the access opening and these bits of plywood have been, as of this writing, thoroughly saturated in epoxy and well-adhered to the underside of the plywood, which I also saturated before installing the fiddles.  As soon as I drill a 3/4" finger hole in the cut-out panel it will be painted in epoxy too and replaced as the new lift-out panel.

I will post photos of how these silly cleats and all have gone together after the epoxy dries.  This whole space, including the underside of the plywood, will be painted in epoxy later and then in white Interlux Bilgekote as soon as it's warm enough to ventilate the space and enable paint to dry.  The bunktop will get done in Durawhite (or whatever the new water-based mildew-resistant paint Pettit is offering now that replaces it).
 
I have not yet decided if it's worth it to extend PVC drain tubes from each of the forward compartments into the after one (where the holding tank and through-hulls are) in order to isolate them from each other.  Any of these might make a very good stash hole for bottled water, blankets, sweaters, boots, and various gear; and as with the one under the cockpit it would be really nice to keep a mishap in one (or water from the hawse pipe) from wetting them all.  Plugs in the ends of the drain tubes would keep them dry till you needed to evacuate them.