Here’s an issue that’s taken me a while to bring up here for discussion. It started about 5-6 years ago when I had the opportunity to tour the old Catalina factory in Woodland Hills. Although at the time they were starting to wind things down, I do recall 34’s and 14’ dinghies were still in production. I noticed something with the sailing dinghies as they were all laid out in various stages of production. It appears the hull was laid up in the mold, then, once cured, extracted from it. Dense black foam core panels were applied to the inside of the hull, after that, one or two, perhaps more layers of FRP were laid over the core, permanently affixing it to the hull. I noticed in [U]every[/U] hull I looked at, about a half dozen, that there were voids around the edges of the core panels. In effect, the wet FRP was simply draped over the core, leaving the voids. It appears no effort was made to “tuck in” the new lay-up. The drawing graphically describes what I’m taking about and obviously, I’m no draftsman. Note of clarification; the drawing attempts to show what I saw with the 14 sailing dinghy and not my 36II.
Since I don’t own one of these dinghies, I though I could care less if this was a quality control problem, but perhaps the chicks have come home to roost.
A couple years ago, I installed two SS braces from the swim step up to the rear railing. In one instance, I just missed the plywood core and sure enough, I found a void in the same area where I might expect to find it based on what I saw of the dinghies under production.
Questions:
1. Do these voids represent a manufacturing defect?
2. I believe in my particular case, the slightly off-target holes I drilled now potentially represents a path for water to leak into this void and from there, directly into the plywood core. Would anyone recommend that I fill the void to prevent water intrusion? I’m inclined to think I should.
3. If I attempt to fill this void, what do you think would work the best, polyester, epoxy, some kind of expanding foam?
4. If water has found its way into the void and core, what would be the effect of sealing it in permanently? Probably not good, I suspect.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Marc & Susan Garcia
"Solla Sollew" #1473, Mk.II
San Buenaventura, Ca.
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 voids.pdf | 15.16 KB |
Voids are common on production boats of all makes, they don't usually cause any structural problems but the gelcoat will likely crack over them so they should be fixed. Have not found any on our current boat yet but our Catalina 28 had several. They are fairly easy to fix you can determine their shape with the hammer, the void makes a very distinct noise. Then drill a few very small holes and inject thickened epoxy with a syringe.
Did you use the holes you drilled off center? If so then I assume you bedded your hardware and it is sealed, until the sealant lets go as it always does sooner or later. I would definitely fill them with thickened epoxy to seal off the core and prevent water intrusion.