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I'm a new owner and recently was checking my scupper drain hoses and noticed the floor/plywood covering the aft bilge is in bad shape. (rot) I haven't removed the lazarette pegboard to get a closer look yet.
My question: Is the floor glassed in or bolted/screwed in?
Any comments on replacing the floor are appreciated.
post a photo?
Commander. Hull 266. I don't have a photo of the aft bilge cover.
Have to wait til a Commander replies.
All I can say is that if the nomenclature is correct, no scupper is ever
drained into the bilge. Cockpit drains may drain via hose to fiberglass
THRUHULL pipes glued into the 'bilge'. Ariels had no seacocks for
these drains that were well below the waterline, but cracks in the
glassing or in old hose would of course be serious. This flawed system
should always be wide open for visual inspection. The connection of
hose to hull fitting should be completely visible and accessible.
It's also possible that leakage could begin at the fitting-to-hose just
under the cockpit.
Some boats have glassed in or separate hose leading deck scuppers
from drains in the side decks by the cockpit. Scuppers are in the deck
next to the toerail. They lead inside the hull and exit at the boottop
just above the waterline.
The Ariel I have were all fiberglass and polyester, no hose, no
discernable thruhulls. They were built-in and part of the hull.
The rot you mention in the aft bilge of what I assume is the cockpit
sole, might be a separate problem from your thruhull scupper
drains. There could be other sources of leaks. Former owners
might have attempted to fix them??
A Commander skipper will have to answer.
Assume rot can only happen if fresh water in quantity was left high
enough in the bilge over time to soak the cabin deck causing it to rot.
In the Ariel the cabin deck was tabbed in plywood. Fiberglass in
strips was pasted on top of the wood at the hull. If you have no
cabin furniture built onto this deck, which I believe you should not
have, it would not be too much of a problem to replace the old with
a new piece. The best LEAST MESSY tool for that would be a Fein
occilating Multitool using a bimetal dogleg blade.
If you haven't got an extra $750 for the tool, HarborFreight has a
decent one for $39 (?). It's the quality of the blade that's important.
Imperial Universal (fit any occilating tool) BM coated StormBlades:
Iboat 330 and 340 are the only bimetal I used to find. That old
polyester can be plenty tough -- but you can carve off most of the
tabbing Pearson used to paste the plywood deck onto the hull
without having to use a grinder. imco
Best of luck...
.
I think I may have been unclear. my scupper drains and thru hulls appear to be fine. I did not mean to imply my scuppers are draining to my bilge.
While crawling around inspecting my scuppers I simply noticed the plywood covering the aft bill underneath the cockpit (Cockpit sole?) was rotted. It looks like 1"or 3/4" plywood and I can see the sides of the plywood. This makes me think it may not be glassed in and easily replaced.
The previous owner had extended the boot stripe near the stern of the boat up to and including part of the motor well. This makes me think that for an extended period of time the boat was stern heavy which may lend credence to your comment about water in large quantities over an extended period of time. But you make the point of saying freshwater. Is freshwater more damaging than salt water?
And finally my original question do you have any knowledge if that plywood covering the aft bilge is screwed or glassed? Did it exist on an Ariel? I poured through the owners manual and could find nothing.
roythomas, Let's see... if the deck down in the cabin is a single layer from the mast to
the companionway -- without a buildup -- as it is in the Ariel -- it is 3/4" fir plywood
that is tabbed onto the hull with strips of fiberglass mat, cloth or roving. If you see
indications of mechanical screws or furniture like construction than it may have been
added by the DFO. Dreaded Former Owner.
Since the cabin deck bears on the hull, there is no opportunity for mechanical fasteners.
The deck may have cross pieces, separating the bilge into compartments. Cross pieces
that would act as support. They may have a cleat to which the cross piece, assuming
it's plywood, is attached. There you will find screws. The furniture in the cabin, if you
look inside it, probably is framed with cleats. A shelf will probably be held in a cabinet
with a couple cleats* on either side of the suspended shelf. Common construction.
*Cleat is a woodworker's term for projecting strips in casework to support panels and
shelving. Versus the mariner's cleat which is a projecting device for attaching line.
There is no way of knowing what you got there without a photo. DFO could have
changed everything with his own constructions.
If you want to remove the rotted wood, cut out the wood with a short blade, keeping
away from the hull. Once you can see what you got, you can use the oscillating tool
to pare back the remaining wood upto the plastic tabbing (the build-out that glued the
plywood down.) There probably is no tabbing under the plywood deck, making it easy
to guide your dogleg blade, up along the hull from the bilge, to cut the frozen snot
away. If you are able, first make a stiff white paper pattern of what you are removing,
before you dig in, so that you can cut the replacement and chamfer it into where it
originally was. After you've removed the offending plywood and the tabbing, Before
you start any grinding or smoothing, it's a good idea to solvent clean the area first.
So that you're not creating mini grooves to collect oil, and who knows what other
gunge, ground into the hull surface.
Once you've got the new piece to fit, cover both sides and all edges with epoxy.
Let it set, then tab it into place with thickened epoxy. Imco.
(least lethal solvent: 91% isopropyl alcohol -- from drugstore.)
You want a single level, no obstruction, 'deck' in the cabin that takes water directly
and straight to the bilge, where it gets pumped out. Never leave water in the bilge.
Polyester hulls absorb water, constant bilge water helps with that, and water captured
in the encapsulated ballast add to the weight of the boat. Over time boot-tops rise.
If the DFO left water in the bilge under the cockpit, and then changed the WL...
can't get a handle on that!
Sounds like you have an OB motor well, maybe DFO had a short shaft OB and had
to weigh the stern down?? Don't want to go there either! Motor well should be well
above the waterline, otherwise it becomes a scoop. Ariel & Commander drawings
in the Manual are not clear, but seem to show the lower edge of the well about
5" above the WL.
Look around the Forum here. There are dozens of Commanders worthy of every
page and every post. Gorgeous restorations and upgrades. There may be clues to
find and ways to approach your problem. There must be a photo or two in their
pages you can refer us to.
If you are new to plastic classics and 2-part epoxy, the only way is to start, and
get your little ship fixed up!:cool: Why not look over what other Commander guys
have pulled off!
(ebb's extremely opinionated and probably the wrong nut to offer advice for the
Commander...)
The bilge cover is in my Ariel. It is glassed in; no mechanical fasteners at all. Looking at mine it appears anytime there is water in the cockpit lockers, it would flow over and through an opening in the cover and wick into the plywood fastened to the underside of the fiberglass. It doesn't appear to be too big of a job to cut it out if you have the pegboard removed and out of the way. And can fit into the cockpit locker.
Without pictures its hard to imagine exactly what your problem is. I know, one of the more difficult tasks of boat ownership is sharing pictures with fellow owners but its worth the learning curve. There are few problems we haven't seen.
Finally took a photo. How do you guys get in there to look? I am 6'5" and could barely wedge myself close enough to see the bilge with my own eyes. I was actually worried about getting stuck and friends finding my body days later.
Attachment 9895
That's tabbing alright!
They even short changed you on that. Any liquid goes
immediately to the bilge.
Wow, thought I was big!
Drug store has 6" to 10" plastic mirrors (pink with handles)
that I use to look into and behind things on the boat.
Plastic stores sometimes have plastic mirror sheet that also
can be used, cut to size, or create a widescreen view
--but expensive.
Looks like cutting with a multitool will be no problem, except
where you can't squeeze (or bend) into...
Where the lid goes over the bilge, those are 'cleats' that hold
the lid. Cleats can be used under plywood replacements. they
might go from side to side glued to the hull. A cleat could
share old and new plywood deck, easy repair.
As suggested above, I've used white cardboard of different
thickness to make full size patterns that are traced on to wood
or sheet. Office supply. Use blue tape and small pieces of card-
board to indicate curves on the pattern. Thick stuff gives some
stiffness.
If you are just repairing, ie not restoring, you have completely
different approaches. Removing old paint is a PITA. I would
hire it out if you are going to restore. If you are going to take
the time to restore, you have to buy a Festool vacuum with a
HEPA filter and a sanding/grinding tool that sucks up what you
are removing THROUGH the tool, so that you can work without
a mask, and not get dust into every nook and cranny.
It'll cost ya plenty.
If you're just going sailing, quick-n-dirty is the only way. And
can be done shipshape without changing the original boat too
much, which will aid in its resale later.
One of the other first things I would do is put in seacocks or
their equivalent. Bronze Grocco are the shortest.
How does one install a bilge pump down there? Can I just bolt it to the bottom of the bilge? Will a 1" screw mess up the watertight integrity of my keel? This all assumes I can fit somehow to do the work!
The pump(s) lift water out of the bilge to another location.
Sometimes to the cockpit, sometimes the deck, sometimes to
a thruhull on the side or stern.
No holes under water. Unless you are bringing seawater in
for some purpose. Underwater holes are always, or should
always have a manual shutoff, called a seacock. Which
makes them expensive.
You might get a copy of Don Casey's Inspecting the Aging
Sailboat, International Marine. Very basic.
More useful,more $$$, is Casey's This Old Boat, Turn a
rundown fiberglass boat into a first-class yacht on a
shoestring budget. Same publisher.
This may be your best bet at this juncture.
There are as many ways to install bilge pumps as there are
bilge pumps and skippers. My way is to install them on a
board you can lift out of the bilge for cleaning and maintenance.
Some will just have them on the end of a hose lowered
and clipped somehow into the bilge. Again, check out
what other Commander's have done, either in the Gallery
or Technical pages here on the pearsonariel.org website.
I don't understand from your photo where the rotted plywood is. I do know that I'd double up on stainless steel clamps on those hoses.
The rot is limited to the forward most section of the board. Right near where it meet cabin wall. I may just use GITROT or something. Not sure.
Attachment 9896
I've attached a rough sketch of where I think you've located the rotted area. If I'm right that's an unusual location. My guess is that someone let this boat sit with the bilge filled from either leakage or a storm and the wood got soaked. Am I close?
Your diagram is accurate. The DFO had extended the boot stripe a few inches at the stern. My conclusion is to hide the scum line from sitting too low in the water at the stern. It makes sense he had lots of water in there.
Roy,
Take this with a grain of Chesapeake Bay salt but here's what I think happened. This comes from my personal experience with Commanders and seeing others over-engineer boats.
These boats were designed to be driven by a 2-4hp outboard that was to be removed from the well during sailing. Each boat came with a plug to fill the well and fair the bottom under sail. Lots of contemporary skippers want a bigger motor, more speed under power, and don't want to deal with the in-and-out. They put in a motor between 9 and 15 hp with electric start and including batteries and big gas tanks (more of that "boom" potential) in the lazarette. This significantly overloads the stern. From a sailing point of view this also seriously messes up the dynamics of the sail plan. My guess is that something like this happened to your boat.
Here's the important point. VERY IMPORTANT! Water still cannot get from the lazerette forward into the bilge even if the boat is seriously wallowing. The bilge is walled off by one solid bulkhead unless it has been breached. What can happen is that the top of those scupper thru-hull tubes can get below the waterline. In normal flat trim the tops of the tubes are above the water line (the one for the galley is not). That can allow the hose joint to leak all the time not just when the boat is heeled. I think that is where your water came from over time.
How to fix? Get a lighter outboard. Rope start is good exercise. three gallons of gas can take a sailor far. Replace those hoses since they are likely to be old and exposed to a lot of water/ice who knows what. DOUBLE CLAMP THE HOSE JOINTS. Then, and only then, put GitRot on the plywood. That rot is not in a structurally significant place. I might not even bother. The rot is an indicator of a potentially boat-sinking leak. Finally, go to the library and get a copy of The Art of Zen and Motorcycle Maintanence. The author beautifully makes the point that one cannot expect machines to be something they were not designed for. The designer of these boats saw motors as a necessary evil to get a sailboat out of an unnatural environment: a marina. Once in open waters he intended the owner to put up the sails and sail. I was on a mooring for a while and used to sail off. What a joy. Get the boat safe. Go sailing.