Digging around the head bulkhead,found dry rot that goes up about 4 inches above the head discharge hose hole.Looking on the chainplate side,i found rot under the chplate at the very bottom...so,there is a good chance when i pull off the chplate this fall that i will find more.Depending on what i find i may have to replace this whole panel...Has anyone done this?Difficulty?Will the panel come out in one piece so i can use it for a template?A big panel of Starboard would be a permanent fix.Ideas?
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"Sailing Still" 1990 C36 M25 wing
Sail Canada/Transport Canada training
Gibsons Harbour BC
www.landsendbc.ca
Greig, this article deals with replacing the bulkhead I believe:
[URL]http://www.c36ia.com/node/1327[/URL]
We had some punky wood in the bulkhead on the starboard side right at the base hidden behind the seat cushion. The cap shroud chain plate had been leaking for quite a while, there was no sign of water in the deck since the chainplate holes had already been ground and epoxied at some point in the boat's past. The surveyor (bless his heart) missed the damage to the bulkhead. But then again so did I.
I used GitRot to solidify the entire bulkhead wherever there appeared to be any water intrusion. Pulled the long bar chainplate out, drilled 1/16" holes into the area behind the chainplate and anywhere else that the wood was soft and injected GitRot into it until it was totally saturated. Along the bottom there was flaking of the outer couple of layers of the panel, I used thickened epoxy coloured with teak dust as a paste and filled that area solid with it. Very messy job but it was easier to do that than change the entire bulkhead. I believe it is fine to do this since the loads are actually taken by the fibreglass structure behind the panel. The panel itself is decorative, as long as it is solid enough to not compress and let the chainplate move. When solidified with epoxy, it is stronger than the original wood was. Or so "they" say. YMMV.
Wow,thanks Bud..the r & r of the bulkhead involves much more than i imagined..so i will go the gitrot route instead,cheers
"Sailing Still" 1990 C36 M25 wing
Sail Canada/Transport Canada training
Gibsons Harbour BC
www.landsendbc.ca
My original plan had been the Gitrot route. However, when I removed the chain plate I found so much dry rot behind it that I just didn't feel confident of doing that for a longer term solution. It was a fair bit of work replacing the bulkhead, but I know I feel a lot more confident about its strength now. Perhaps an alternative would be to through-bolt the chain plate to a wider plate on the other side and then through bolt that plate back through to spread the load to some wood that's not rotted out.
SF Bay
1998 C36