I read all of the hull/deck seam postings on this site and then I removed the leaking rub rail on my boat, hull #330. The seam was filled with some of the original stuff, by the summer of 2002, brittle and no longer functioning as a water barrier. However someone had at one point removed a mess of that stuff and pumped the seam full of silicon. I cleaned all of that out. Here are my log entries for July 2002 related to my solution to the problem of water intrusion:

04-Jul-02
Hull / deck seam:
Cleaned out hull deck seam with razor knife designed for cutting plastic.

08-Jul-02
Hull / deck seam:
Cleaned out hull-deck seam with razor knife designed for cutting plastic.

09-Jul-02
Hull / deck seam:
Cleaned hull deck seam and screw holes w/ acetone, filled screw holes w/ epoxy, filled seam with 3M 5200

11-Jul-02
Hull deck seam :
Sanded exterior of seam w/ 600grit sandpaper and cleaned with acetone, applied back half of rub rail with 3M 4200 and 1/2 inch #8 screws

12-Jul-02
Hull / deck seam:
Applied front half of portside rail with 3M 4200 and 1/2 inch screws, and back half of starboard rail. Applied front half of starboard rail with 3M 4200 and 1/2 inch screws.

I worked on other projects also on those five days. Many of the original ¾ inch screw holes went all of the way through the hull and through the glass tape that holds the hull onto the deck. That is why I filled the holes with epoxy.

I sealed the hull / deck seam with 5200 to give a permanent flexible waterproof bond, and used 4200 to reattach the rub rail so that if need be I can remove the rub rail again at some time in the future.

As far as the integrity of the hull/deck seam, I am for sticking with Mr. Alberg's design. I suppose if I had pulled off the rub rail and looked at that seam before I decided to buy an Ariel, and realized that:

1.The screws do nothing but hold the rub rail onto the boat, and

2.The only thing holding the deck to the hull is that little strip of glass and resin applied as a cold-joint band-aid along the flush mounted hull deck seam when the hull was married to the deck,

I might have had second thoughts about buying the boat. But hey, my boat had been "rode hard and put away wet" for years before I bought it, and apparently even once survived a major collision with a metal can which sent radial cracks out about a foot across both the deck and hull near of the starboard sheet winch, and the hull deck seam, boltless and screwless survived all of that.

Personally I subscribe to the idea that the decks on blue water cruising boats should be through bolted (not screwed) to the hull along an overlapping flange and also sealed with a flexible bond like 3M 5200.

Of course the Ariel was probably not intended to be a blue water cruising boat. There is no such flange on Pearson Ariels through which bolts can be passed, and that mystifies me, but I wanted a Carl Alberg boat and I bought one. I figure that Mr. Alberg had a very good reason for designing the Ariel the way that he did. Those who choose to attempt to strengthen the seam will still be dependent on what amounts to a chemical bond, with no fasteners connecting the hull to the deck. Not to worry; many other successful boats use chemical bonds without fasteners.

The longitudinal cracks evident on my toe rail before I repaired them tell me that that area must have flexed considerably. I wonder if the rather strong "U" shaped but hollow toe rail was designed to flex to some degree to offload the stress on the hull deck seam. If the toe rail was designed to flex in order to offload stress, then filling the underside of the toe rail with epoxy would serve to reduce the ability of that area to flex, and necessarily shift stress to another area.