Ariel #24

[Tim Mertinooke]

In an obsessive compulsive rage I decided to finish removing what was left of the materials Pearson "dumped" into the bilge. I noticed at the very bottom of the bilge beneath the foam was a rubber-like compound that the lead pigs sat on. This was obnoxious to remove, but worth it. I used my trusty wonder bar and a serrated knife to remove it a little bit at a time. Prying, cutting, prying, cutting until it was all removed. What I have now at the bottom of my bilge is fiberglass, poured resin, and some random things set in the resin like a piece of mahogany, and some weird purple sea-shell type things. There is no wonder now that I look at this that water could have percolated down into the laminate then out the shoe through the pin holes. I could also see light through a couple areas where the shoe sets before I did the epoxy work shown in the previous post. I am going to prep the area by removing all of the excess resin stuck to the sides of the bilge. Grind down the random high spots, clean the ara with acetone to remove the nastiness, rough up the area at the very bottom of the bilge and then pour some epoxy in which I hope migrats into the nooks and crannies. This will be followed by a couple layers of fine weave cloth saturated in epoxy. Once that is done the area will be coated with a thin coat of thickened epoxy to make it fair. My goal it to have a smooth clean bilge that does not let water in or out unless directed by me. THe area in the front of this part of the bilge allows water into the keel void found between the lead ballast and the hull. This area will also be sealed with epoxy and laminate. This will be painted with bilgekote once complete. I have no plans to put the lead pigs back in. Once this is done I will mount my new bilge pump.






This stuff is incredibly foul smelling and tough.



A snap shot into the tools and technique.



This is a view after I removed all of this rubber stuff. You can see it is a potpourii of stuff (wood, glass, resin, unknown solids mixed in.) This was certainly shoddy work done by Pearson. The good news is that I am truly at the bottom of my bilge now and if I prep well I should get a good mecahnical bond between the new epoxy and what is there now totally sealing the area off forever. I will hide the sins of those before me.






If you look closely at this picture you can see the purple solid things I was mentioning. They are inbedded in the resin they poured. This is the area directly above the rudder shoe location. I can visualize water making in between these pieces and the resin poured. Covering this should do the trick.