Glassed or bolted/screwed?

[ebb]

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...

.

[roythomas]

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.

[Les]

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.

[SkipperJer]

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.