Ive found wet wood around the forward hatch between the deck and interior skins.  Anyone else dealt with this?  Is the water coming from mast step or the hatch frame?  Any input would be appreciated.

K Werner

WarBird #169

I took the hatch and frame off my boat (#151) recently to investigate a small leak. I think the hatch frame was the culprit on my boat.  No wetness in the wood (it is pretty dry here in the Okanagan), but the wood had delaminated and the deck was soft on the forward and starboard sides and part of the port side.  Aft edge was solid.  Dug out wood to get back in about 3 inches to solid material, beig careful not to damage the thin fibreglass skins.  Machined clear cedar piece for the starboard side - it is straight - and cedar strips for the curved forward edge.  Epoxied them all in using West System Epoxy.  Roughed up the cedar with 80 grit paper and treated it with Xylene to strip out any natural oils near the surface. 

The cedar strips for the curved forward edge were thin enough to spring to the curved shape and sized so 3 thicknesses fitted nicely in the space.

Used clamps evey 2 inches to hold the whole thing together whilst the epoxy set up.

I obviously haven't tried a destruction test but it seems to be very strong now, no flexing whatsoever. 

I used exterior plywood covered in west epoxy,  layer of cloth between the 2 1/4 (3/8?) layers.  To avoid squeeze out I did the following.  Took oversized plywood strips about 4" x24" to cover the 3" x14-18" area.  I glued medium density foam to the strips.  I assembled the repair laminations one layer at a time, cover them with wax paper and clamped the foam covered ply strips snugly not tight with a clamp every4-8'', the compressed foam gave a uniform moderate clamping pressure.  I overlapped the corners on the second lamination with another layer of cloth.