Kurt thanks! After a little more research about laminating the rudder I decided to leave well enough alone at least for this coming season. I'm going to leave it as is for now and put it back on once I finish attaching the rudder shoe, strap, etc. My season will be realtively short this year in the water. We are putting the boat in toward the middle of June and will take her out in the beginning of September. My wife, son, and I will have two months every summer to really use her and this summer being our first with the boat will be a series of shakedown cruises aimed at seeing what we want onboard, what needs to be fixed, replaced, etc. I'm going to pull her out in September so that I have a couple months of epoxy weather to do more projects. We live about two hours from where we will keep the boat during the summer and having her on a trailer allows me to bring her home for just a tank of gas. It has been priceless to have her in the yard in terms of getting work done. The following summer after sprucing her up and working through some more projects this fall she'll go in in May and come out the middle of October. We plan on doing a nice extended Maine cruise that summer with the time we have off. Anyway, I'll check the condition of the rudder after my "short" season this year and gauge what to do next. If it's in great shape I'll leave it alone, if not I may just use your idea it sounds pretty bulletproof.
Last edited by Tim Mertinooke; 04-22-2007 at 05:16 AM.
While waiting for the epoxy to do its thing yesterday I scraped the bottom paint off of a couple spots at the aft end of the keel just above the rudder strap (see pic one.) What I found was interesting and perplexing (two feelings I have often these days working on A-24) at the same time. There is a purple substance that I have also found a few other places on the boat filling what appears to be a hole or something. This filler material is extremely hard. In the center of the material as seen in pic two and three there is a hole. I was able to shove an exploratory stick way up, so there is clearly space there. There are two areas like this. Does anyone know what I am looking at? Do these holes allow water into the bilge? How did A-24 stay afloat before me?
The hole can be seen in the center of the purple filler and goes straight up.
Here is a closer shot.
Last edited by Tim Mertinooke; 04-22-2007 at 05:39 AM.
I've also encountered the same blue chalk/polyester mess in several locations on my boat. I think the folks at pearson must have been using carpenter's chalk to thicken polyester resin for fillets & fairing compounds. I was going to blame it on a previous owner but it occurs in places that only the factory has touched... (like under bulkhead tabbing). I've found it to be as brittle as bondo. well worth chipping out and replacing with some marine grade material.
Thanks Bill. I'm glad that repair is history. Now I'm focusing on the rudder shoe, rudder, etc. Whn you removed your rudder, dod you encounter anything like the two holes I posted pictures of in the earlier posts. I am going to just fill them in but can't for the life of me figure out why they are there or where they go.
I think you found the propeller aperture.. At least that's where my prop is located.
I've read that all hulls had the cut out for an inboard prop. The factory then faired-in a separate piece to fill in the aperture if the boat was built as an outboard. The blue fairing compound on the seam appears to match lower section of the yellow outline in the picture attached (from A-409). From some other observations on this site this is another wet spot although it shouldn't result in water reaching the bilge. It will possibly lead to freeze/thaw damage if water is traped in there. I suspect you will find more of that blue fairing about 1 foot above the spot you found.
while the rudder is out, you may want to clean out and fair the slot where the rudder meets the trailing edge of the keel. on my boat there were a couple of thin spots in that slot where the rudder had chafed against the hull opening up a couple small holes.
good luck,
bill
Last edited by bill@ariel231; 04-22-2007 at 07:03 PM.
Bill, that makes a lot of sense and yes there is another one about a foot or so above. I'll just grind them out a little then fill with epoxy. I can't wait to see how dry my new bilge is once I launch this summer. A dry bilge is like a good cup of coffee, although there is only a handful of us out there that can relate to such a comparison. Thanks for the info!
Here is my plan to replace the hideous attempt at weather-proofing the depth sounder. I am going to add a four inch bronze fixed port to the bulkhead and then mount the depth sounder display behind on a nice piece of mahogany. The mahogany piece will have a hinge so that it can be flipped out of the way to allow light inside if I want. I like this approach because the depth sounder display will be able to be read from the inside or out and it won't be in the way like one mounted that swings into the companionway. This will also allow me to keep the companionway boards in and still read the depth. The added light is the bonus and I plan to add another on the port side to keep things symetrical. My Cape Dorification of hardware has begun with this step toward bronze.
How it looks right now...
This is what will be in its place.
Last edited by Tim Mertinooke; 04-24-2007 at 05:33 PM.
I like your port idea.. but if it saves you time, that model depth sounder is weather proof in a bulkhead mount. We had one out in the weather for 14 years on a Cape Dory. no problem as long as the UV sun cover was used to protect the clear plastic display.
This is the approximate size and position of the new port which will be delivered sometime this coming week. I still need to work out position because I am making the mounting piece of wood with a hinge and I want it to work seemlessly and simple while maintaining a symmetrical look on the outside. I will probably install another on the port side to maintain the symmetry and maybe mount the GPS on the same type of hinged piece of wood
I am removing all of the bottom paint from the rudder area while the rudder is out to get a good assessment. I was looking closely at the bottom of the rudder tube and noticed what appeared to be unsaturated cloth. My plan is to grind the dry cloth out with a dremel and flapwheel which has worked very well for hard to reach areas in other projects and then fill the gap between the glass rudder tube and the opening just below it with thickened epoxy. I'm not sure if water could get in from there, but the fact that cloth seems unsaturated there and that it is below the waterline this is a good preventative repair.
Tim, I think the tube itself is fiberglass pipe and looks fine.
It is all that sloppy Pearson work around it that looks dry.
The trouble is when you are working with polyester that it is an undependable glue. So if they stopped for lunch and went back later we get joins that have no strength in sheer.
You can find white fiberglass showing at times that was soaked at the time of laminating. Liquid plastic doesn't really soak into the fibers, just surrounds it. But it looks like you may have found another area that was not saturated when the boat was made.
It also could be a 'major' leak area. I would fair the hole, as I'm sure you are doing, and add some epoxy insurance inside where the tube exits the hull.
Thanks for the CSI photos!!!
I ground it out a little last night after posting and found staurated laminate which is good. I can imagine though water that slowly migrates through any imperfection there and finds its way in to the bilge. I'll post some photos tonight after further grinding and investigation. Shouldn't be a biggie, I imagine smearing some epoxy up there so that it is fair with the bottom of the rudder tube. That ought to do it. How did this boat stay afloat again?
BTW- My little cherub likes his Ariel. The indoctrination begins!
excellent job on the recruiting side of your refit team! He'll fit in all of the places where adult sized humans don't. Very handy when it comes time to rewire your boat.
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