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Hi Everyone -
My guess is that I completed my Passagemaker Dinghy about 8 years ago. It's always been garage stored, but it has seen pretty regular usage.
I thought it might be time for some varnish touch up this summer, but when I went to flip it over I heard the sloshing of bad news. Sounds and feels like a fair amount of bad news.
It's a bit of a mystery, because I usually lift the boat off the trailer and walk it to the lake, and I would have heard and felt this.
It looks to me like there is some seperation between the transom and the hull - that might be where the infiltration was. I never installed inspection ports - so that is the first step. At minimum the water has been in there 8 months - more likely a little bit after every sail for a year. I'm not sure how much damage we are looking at.
If we can assume best case, and the damage is minimal - would the repair be dremmeling out the seam and piping epoxy into it?
Any other advice?
John in Ann Arbor
2 replies:
RE: Water in Passagemaker
What Laszlo said...plus you really ought to think about putting in some sort of reasonably watertight inspection ports. I did this on our own Passagemaker, and I unscrew them after every outing to (1) make sure there isn't any major water finding it's way inside and (2) to allow the space to air out regardless. Rot loves a closed space....
.....Michael
RE: Water in Passagemaker
» Submitted by Laszlo - Sun, 6/16/24 » 10:12 AM
If that much water had been there that long in my boat, I'd take the entire top of the compartment off to inspect and probably repair the inside of the space.
With careful cutting you should be able to get the tops off in 1 piece, each. Next, let everything dry out for a few days, then go on a hunt for rotted wood. If you find some, scrape it out, let it all thoroughly dry and replace it with woodflour/epoxy putty. Then, whether you found rot or not, coat the entire inside space with 4 oz glass.
Finally, replace the seat tops. You may need to attach new supports inside the compartments. The cuts can be hidden with larger fillets. For extra strength, put glass tape over the new fillets. You may also need some paint to conceal the repair cuts, but at least you'll have a solid watertight boat, again.
Good luck,
Laszlo