You could put a hasp and padlock on it, but a simpler method has been devised, using a couple dead eye straps, a jamb cleat and a piece of 1/4″ or 5/16″ line.

It looks like this:

The position of the line is such that with the locker closed, it’s held over a fore and aft plywood divider on the inboard side of the cockpit locker. The upper terminal dead eye looks like this, and is held on with pop rivets….line has a figure 8 stopper knot:

Below that is another dead eye, set at a 45 degree angle, which acts as a “turning block for the line, which then runs forward along the inside wall of the cockpit floor. Viewed from above, it is mounted on the inboard plywood divider that makes up the inboard cockpit locker wall:

This ends at a jamb cleat just inside the companionway. This one doesn’t have an fairlead eye on it, but would be improved if it did. Again, held by pop rivets:

So the process to lock the lid down is when the lid is closed, simply pull the line tight from within the cabin and cleat it. It has enough holding power to prevent the lid from raising under all but extreme conditions. It would not stop a real thief, but would keep curious explorers out of your lockers and honest men honest. It’s inside the cabin, so when the hatch is locked, it can be too.

No real downside other than having the line in the way in your locker, but in practice, I don’t even notice it.

Jerry Montgomery has written how the rudder on the M17 is an integral part of it’s ability to perform well in that’s is a large lifting foil. Not only that, but the M17, with it’s CB, is a variable draft boat. Most rudders on this type of boat are kickup, but the M17 has a unique one piece rudder that slides up and down on a 1/2 inch pintle rod.

As with everything else on a 25 to 30 year old boat, maintenance is required. In the case of Audasea, both the rudder and tiller needed replacement.

One of the first repair projects I attempted on this boat was the replacement of the tiller. The one that came with the boat was made of some exotic wood….perhaps even teak….but had a large crack in it. After looking it over….and realizing it’s importance…..I decided to replace it. Replacement wasn’t a big issue, the question is….replacement with what?

In one of the Pardey books, Larry is quoted as saying the tiller should be strong enough to block up on either end and stand on it in the middle. To those who followed Charlie Whipple’s saga of building a boat to sail round the world (Small Craft Advisor) only to lose the boat on the rocks within a week or so of her launching……I was struck by Charlie’s comment that when he first heard the crunch of the rocks, he ran to the cockpit only to find his tiller had snapped. No way to steer the boat and he lost her. Once again, Larry was right.

Back to finding a source of wood to make this strong tiller, I’m lucky in that my father has a really nice wood working shop, along with a large selection of hardwoods that he uses to make furniture and a variety of overbuilt, hell for stout wood working projects. My first choice for tiller stock would be black locust, or Osage orange, but lacking either of those, what I found was a ancient (meaning dry) piece of 2 x 4 quarter sawn white oak that was about 5 feet long and it had a natural curve to it that matched the existing tiller. The curve meant it was scrap that wouldn’t be used for most wood working projects, but perfect for my tiller. It was cleaned up and planed down to just over 1 1/2 inches in thickness. I then laid the old tiller on top of it, traced out the shape and cut it out on a band saw. That left me with the basic two dimension shape of my tiller, but the geometry of this was a bit more complicated, in that it tapers in two directions (looking down from above). These are the dimensions I found:

The Tiller Scantlings

To taper the tiller evenly from 1 1/2 inches at the rudder to 1 inch at the front took some thought. What I did was to put 4 marks on the tiller, then run it through a planer (jointer), starting at the front mark (first mark about a foot from the left)……lowering the tiller onto the jointer on the first mark, then passing as you are viewing it from right to left, to the handle end. Turn it over and do the other side. Move up to the next mark and do it again….running it from the mark to the handle end.  Repeat this 4 times. With the jointer set to take off 1/16 th inch with each pass, The handle end had half an inch total removed and the taper was set. Lastly, I hit the edges with a 1/4″ roundover bit on a router and it was ready to sand and finish. In this case, 7 coats of Interlux Goldspar, a polyurethane from Interlux.

I’m happy to report it passed Larry’s stress test, and has held up really well:

New Tiller

New and Old Tiller Side by Side

Decoration aside, the turk’s head knot at the handle also has a functional use, as it provides a register for your hand without having to look at the tiller. The cleat on the underside is used with a piece of line tied to coaming cleats and serves as a tiller tamer. This tiller is 42 inches long, but is 1/2″ too long,  as it barely passes through the split backstay as the tiller pivots up. Other than that, it’s a great length to sit anywhere in the cockpit and steer. I hardly ever use the hiking stick….mostly out of personal preference.

Next up was the rudder….represented to be solid mahogany. It turns out it is! 

Basic stock would be a 6′ x 1′ x 1.5 inch solid wood (either one piece or a variety of laminated strips). From that, it’s cut out to it’s final shape. As it’s not easy to find a 12″ (actual 12 inches) block of mahogany, the rough stock is made by gluing some strips on the leading edge. In the case of my original rudder, that front lamination had fallen off, so it was just a square leading edge. I took the liberty of rounding that over and got a couple years out of it, before realizing the rudder also was bent….being nearly 1 inch out of line at the bottom. Let go of the tiller and she always turned to one side. Beyond that, the aft edge was no longer sharp, nor was it the same width. At speed, it would hum and vibrate something fierce.  All things considered, it was time for replacement. I could make one, but before I went that far, I called Bob at the Montgomery factory and was able to purchase one at a reasonable cost. Problem solved….except it needed to have holes drilled for the hardware.

Smack in the middle of all this, I decided I wanted to build a self steering wind vane, and the design I chose meant drastic surgery on the tiller….something I didn’t want to do to a gorgeous piece of mahogany just to satisfy my curiosity, so it was back to building.

For the experimental wind vane rudder, I wanted cheap and easy, so I glued together two 1′ x 6′ strips of 3/4″ marine plywood (there was a reason for this….but this is not the time or place for that). But to cut it out, I needed the dimensions. I’d never paid much attention to the rudder before, but it’s a piece of work….complicated by a number of factors, not to mention the transom apparently has a bit of rake to it (about 4 degrees).

But as to the rudder, if you want to make one, here are the dimensions (taken from the new rudder…..the new and old differ slightly):

Rudder Dimensions

If you look closely, you notice the rudder tapers from 12 inches at the base to 10 3/4 inches at the waterline, then up to 8 inches at the head. Tiller tilts up, so it pivots on a hole, but rests on a 1/2 inch ledge. Butt of the tiller is the same width as the rudder head. Other than getting the foil shaped right, building this is not all that difficult. I used a NACA 0012 foil shape, and it worked fine.

To enable the rudder to raise and lower, a line attaches to a deadeye on the transom and runs through a lifting hole, then back to a cleat…also on the transom. You can slide the entire rudder up a little over a foot, cleat it off….and still have a fully functional rudder. Aside from being a “spade” type rudder, which itself is vulnerable to hitting stuff, the rudder exerts a considerable amount of leverage on the rudder pin during a grounding. These are often bent, so having a spare is a good idea. Once the pin is bent, sliding is hard at best, but more likely impossible.

As a side note to the rudder pin, when installing gudgeons on a new rudder, one of the more complicated tasks is to get them all lined up straight. The “hinges” are similar, but not exactly the same, so you really can’t pre-drill your exact holes. Better way is to put them about where you want them, then insert the 1/2″ rod and make sure it slides easily, then drill the holes with the pin still in place. Even doing this, it may get out of line to the point it binds vs. sliding easily. Not only that, but any variation is going to cause problems, so if you remove the hardware from the rudder, mark them 1, 2 and 3….A, B, C, whatever, and mark them to one side so you put them back exactly as you took them off. Same position and not flipped over. Otherwise, they may not align to a straight rudder pin. When drilling, I put one hole on the end pieces, get it all working straight, then drill one hole for the middle one. If it stays all lined up, I’ll drill and install the remaining 3 bolts. All important, as if the rudder pin binds, the rudder won’t raise and lower easily.

With basic tools, making a new rudder pin is easier than you might think. I’m now on my 2nd or 3rd replacement pin, so I keep a supply of 1/2″ 316 stainless stock, which I can cutoff with a jig saw and holes for the clip pins with a drill press. The secret to drilling stainless is good bits and go slow. The slowest setting the drill press has and keep the bit wet with cutting oil or water. 316 stainless is softer and easier to bend than 304, but is also easier to machine, and is more corrosion resistant. I’ve heard Jerry suggest aluminum bronze for this, but have not tried it. Please note, newer boats have a different pin arrangement. The bottom is machined to fit in a smaller gudgeon. If you have that, you are on your own.

As the rudder is wood, holes are best drilled out oversized and backfilled with epoxy. That is the 6 holes for the rudder brackets and one hole for the tiller bolt. The oversize in my case is 1/2″ holes for 1/4″ bolts. Leaves 1/8″ margin around the bolt and “room to roam”, meaning room to wander around a bit to get the alignment right. See above.

Some pictures on how I do it:

Drilling out for Epoxy Bushings

Drilled and champhered - Ready for Filling

Holes Taped for Backfill

For some time now I’ve been collecting and using a variety of hand tools (saws, planes, drills), and find it remarkable how well they work.   The original cordless drill…..along with a set of Russell Jennings double twist bits. Cuts perfect holes with no tear out and cuts them fast……

Brace and Bits

One Hole Backfilled with Epoxy

Backfilling with epoxy does double duty for these, as a plain hole in the wood will allow moisture in and rot will start, and once that happens, the bolts holding the bracket on start to pinch the wood in as you keep tightening them when they work lose from rot. This is especially important for the bottom bracket, as it operates below the water line. Not only does it limit moisture, but epoxy acts as a spacer bushing. At the tiller end, look close and you will see it’s only one bolt that holds your tiller onto the rudder head. Don’t want that to fail!

Anyway, here is the roster of rudders for this boat.

Rudders for the Montgomery 17

The white on the right is the plywood version I used for 3 or 4 seasons. It’s still good, but the plywood is checking. Time to give the new rudder a try.

If you have questions…..feel free to ask.

http://www.msog.org/models/m17/m-17-cb.cfm

As near as I can tell, the stub keel was layed up as an integral part of the hull. After that, the CB slot is cut and the trunk sides are set in place. I’ve never heard what it is they were set in place with, but my guess is something like 3M 5200. If not, it was probably a polyester type gel. They used to sell one (and may still) that was about the consistency of Vasoline jelly. At any rate, whatever was used, after the trunk sides are in place, the ballast, consisting of steel or iron punchings (they are about the size of camera batteries, deer droppings, etc) was also encased in some type of resin. If memory serves, there is about 500# of this stuff in the keel of an M17. On some boats, the ballast was simply covered and a bilge/sump was left. On others (like mine) the ballast cover was brought up flush to the cabin sole (no bilge). Some might have been finished flush with an empty cavity below. Those have the potential for trouble if water gets in them. More on that later.

The CB itself is a pie wedge style, which hangs from the keel on a pivot pin and drops down from the slot. At the aft end of the board is a tooth that is cast into the board. That tooth drops down onto a stopper pin, that carries the weight of the board (about 180#’s). The original stopper pin is not much more than a 1/4″ flat head screw. A very large screw with a flat heat that sits flush with the keel. Low drag. It’s also not big enough to take any sort of pounding if you let the CB drop down hard. Even feathering it down, mine has a solid THUNK when it bottoms out. Aside from the stopper pin, the tooth isn’t all that robust either, despite being a part of the original casting. If you pull the board, look that tooth over carefully. That’s what your board rides on.

The pennant (pronounced pendant) that raises and lowers it hooks to the aft end of the CB. The CB is 3/4 inch wide and for the pennant clevis, there was a “step” cast into the board, so that the clevis is no wider than the board, and will ride up and down in the slot. The pennant attaches with a simple knot (mine uses a figure eight) although I suspect some have also been rigged with spliced eyes and a thimble. The lift mechanism is a winch, located inside or just outside the companion way step. Mine is inside. Two wraps and some grunting with the winch handle and you can raise it. It’s a load. Maintain two wraps and hang on while you feather it down. THUNK!!!

The lift winch and CB trunk inside the cabin and under the cockpit:

Lift Winch and Centerboard Trunk in Cabin

When I had my board out, I laid it on a large piece of paper and traced the outline of it, so I have specs if anyone needs them. I could try to copy them, or draw them on a graphic file and post them.

As for repairs and maintenance, there are two parts: the trunk and the board.

The Trunk: Not much really to maintain, but potentially the source of a huge problem on the boat. On older boats, it’s possible that whatever was used to seal/bed the CB trunk sides to the hull at the base of the CB slot has dried, cracked given way.

Port aft view of trunk:

Port View aft on Centerboard Trunk

Starboard Side of Trunk Under Pivot Pin

As can be seen, whatever was used to seal the trunk sides is no more. Cracked, and in some cases, simple gone. Water…..sea water…..can now seep up into the ballast area. It all depends on how well the ballast was encased in whatever they encased it in. Or it could even seep past that and start filling up the cavity above the ballast if one was left. If you have water seeping up into the cabin from the CB trunk, this may be why.

Second part, and potentially the BIG one, is if water gets to the ballast and it starts rusting.

Rusting ballast will expand may push the trunk sides out. If your CB binds and won’t go up and down, this is a possible reason.

Assuming no damage to the ballast, the cure for the cracks is to pull the board, then grind out the gunk, back fill with thickened epoxy and run a piece of glass tape over the joint. Fair it, sand it and paint it.  That can be done relatively easy. A swollen trunk and bound up board is another matter. A lot of guys have pounded them out (inserted steel rods inside the pennant hole in the cabin and tapped on them from above with a hammer) and also by working hacksaw blades down each side. All I can suggest here is to be careful. That board weighs 180 pounds and when it lets go, it may drop in a hurry. I would not be underneath it for anything.

If the ballast has rusted and trunk swollen, you’ve got problems. The cure for this is to open the side of the trunk, jack hammer out all the old ballast…..fix the trunk sides, then replace with lead ballast and put the sides back on. Before you do this, test the ballast with a magnet to make sure it’s steel.

I had this trunk repaired, but I didn’t do it myself. I took her to Hoopers at Afton, MN. They know the boat and know this repair. I feared I was going to need the ballast job, but it turns out she was not bad at all. They only had to do the repair of the missing sealant at the base of the trunk sides. Excellent work and reasonable in price! Worst case scenerio, it’s probably a $1,000 to $1,500 repair, plus whatever it costs to get it there and back.

On the board, I have pulled the board myself. Lots of ideas on this, with all kinds of schemes and methods to lift the boat from the trailer enough to let it drop. For $90, a local yard helped me with their host, and put lift straps under the boat, lifted it off, we pulled the trailer out and set her on her keel. We then pulled the pivot pin and raised the boat again….and the CB was left behind to drop out the bottom. We moved the CB out and dropped the boat back on the trailer. Safely.

Once out, I found the board to be in rough shape. If had been fixed before, but the repair had not held up. Some kind of fairing compound had been used, but it was rusting all over. After a little checking around, the solution we found was to have it sand blasted. A auto body shop did it for me for $50. A good idea, but only if you have planned ahead.

Remember, these are cast iron and will rust if exposed to water. Just look at the tip above for how bad this can be. I knew I wanted to paint it with an anti fouling bottom paint and with these systems, you work backwards to through your prep steps so you can finish where you want to. In my case, I got the bright idea I wanted to use Interlux VC offshore, a vinyl paint. Prep for that was way to complicated, involving an etching primer, an sealing primer and eventually the bottom paint. Three different steps and all complicated and of course, all needing different thinning agents, etc that nobody had locally. And hazardous to ship which meant money.

In retrospect, I’m reasonably certain the same thing could have been accomplished by simply using thickened epoxy. Blast the board, level it and within minutes, try to roll on a coat of unthinned epoxy. Get on it as soon as possible and the board will start rusting within minutes. If you are blasting it yourself, do the sides one at a time. Use a coat of thin, then another of thickened epoxy. One pouring should do it If you leveled the board, a sagging epoxy will self level and self fair. Thickened with cabosil will harden the cured epoxy to help resist dings and scratches. Fairing is also going to be needed if my board is any indication of the rest of them. It had a lot of voids cast into it. Level it, use thickened epoxy and it should work like a charm.

If you let a shop blast it, roll on your first coat of fast cure at the blast site. As soon as it can be handled, flip it over and do the other side. If level, the epoxy will self fair. Some folks suggest you hit the original coat of wet epoxy with a wire brush to work it into the cracks and to bust bubbles. Can’t hurt. If you can work there, go ahead and lay on the thickened stuff to self level and fair it. Or take it home and do it there. You have a day or so where a chemical bond is still possible. Standard wet on wet/wet on dry rules for working with epoxy layers apply.

One you are sure you have the board completely coated and sealed with epoxy, and no iron is exposed, you could wash, then slight sand it (or wet sand it….about 100 grit) and go ahead and apply anti fouling paint. Much easier than what I did!

As seen on the previous photo, the tip of the board takes most of the abuse. Keep an eye on it and touch up as needed. Boards retracted up into the trunk get very little fouling, as there isn’t much light inside the trunk.

Questions?

Next up: The tiller and rudder.

The side windows were no exception. The originals were two part aluminum frames. An outside part with an exterior flange and inner channel which held the glass, and an inner frame which screwed to the exterior frame from the inside. The frames themselves were corroded a bit, but in general, where in decent shape. The glass was crazed and hazy, but probably had a few more years left. What was leaking, it turns out, was the rubber gasket the glass was set in. Over the years, it had become hard and brittle and water would just wick right past it. The easy fix would be to run a bead of silicone caulk around the glass and frame edge. Temporary and ugly to boot, so that was ruled out. No, what needed replacement was that channel gasket. But after numerous searches, inquiries to glass shops, etc, I had no luck in finding a replacement gasket to fit that channel. Beyond that, to get it replaced meant the outer frame was going to have to be opened up,  the glass replaced and the frame riveted and soldered back in place. Possible, but was there a better way? A note from Bob Eeg, builder of the Montgomery’s suggested there was.

Probably about the same time as the deck was retooled to include the box top flange, the windows were also changed to include a detent ring for the windows. Instead of the aluminum frames, the windows were fitted into a recess and simply through bolted to the cabin top. Glass was replaced with plexiglass or lexan. Bob had done a refit on an older M17 he had traded for, and had replaced with side windows by bolting a similar piece of plastic to the cabin side. They were not flush mounted as the new ones were, but looked ok. I decided to do the same thing.

After looking the original aluminum frames over, I decided they were not the look I was going for. A bit too large. So instead, I used a piece of 1/4 plywood to first trace the opening in the cabin top. Once that was traced, and cut out (to make an ply piece the exact same size as the opening), that was placed on another piece of plywood, and traced out. Looking that over, I figured a 1 inch margin of ply around the hole would be enough room to bolt through. The problem was that once that was traced out, it didn’t look right. After a bunch of trial and error  sketches, what I would up with was to let extensions of the 1 inch margin lines intersect each other, then I created rounded corners of different sizes. It came out with a sleek, “European” look, which I decided was OK.

Port Template

I then cut that out as a pattern and took it to a local glass shop and had them cut me out a pair of side lights of the same shape, out of gray smoked 1/4 inch Lexan. You could hit that with a hammer and it won’t break, but of the two, Lexan is prone to scratching. But if it goes bad, it’s no big deal to replace. The windows came from the glass cutter with a sharp edge, which I hit with a 1/4″ round over router bit.

Next was what to seal it with? A buddy of mine works for a company that makes a black sealant tape. Reminds me of the old style taffy we used to buy as kids, that came between two sheets of waxed paper:

Template for Sealing Material

Seemed like really good stuff, and he swore by it, but I wasn’t too sure. So I did one with this stuff and one with black silicone caulk. Normally, I would use Boatlife caulk (polysulfide), but everything I’ve read said it would eat the Lexan. So one went on with the black tape, and one with silicone. I used 10-32 angle head machine screws, stainless cup washers. For the inside, I decided I wanted something a little nicer than the simple acorn lock nuts and washers, so I used the same two ply patterns…the outside for the whole shape and the inside for the window cutout, to make a piece of 1/4 inch plywood trim for the inside, which I varnished. This also did a good job of hiding the edge of the window hole cutout in the cabin side.

This is the boat with the replacement windows in place.

Boat with Replacement Ports

After about 4 years, I’ve noticed the black caulking tape has dried and cracked, and that window is now leaking again. The silicone caulked one is fine. Overall, this was not a big job and in my opinion, a great way to replace the side windows on the older boats. My normal preference is to stick with the original equipment, but in this case, I think it was a good upgrade.

Next up……the centerboard.

Chain Plates

One of the chronic leaks that caught my eye was through the bolts at the chain plates. You can almost see them in the above photo, peaking out the corners. If you were in the boat during a wet evening or rain storm, you would eventually find water weeping past those plates and running down the inside of the cabin. Those wet cushions again.

But then I got to thinking, thats not good. That’s a cored area. 

Now that I was paying attention, all of a sudden I realized that somebody had put a layer of heavy woven glass roving over those, and either painted or gel coated them to hide the repair. Since the boat was torn up anyway, I decided to take a peak. I pulled off the nuts, pushed out the bolts, removed the plates on the inside and started poking around. What I found was not good. It was black mushy stuff. Taps on the cored area met with a dull splat vs. that sharp pinging sound you want to hear. My core was rotten (my grandmother once suggested I was rotten to the core, but that’s a different story).

Knowing that it’s the chainplates that take all the stress of side stays (shrouds)….all the heeling force…..and a solid connection is what holds the mast up, a feeling of concern set in.

There are several cored areas on the M boats. Most of them are under the deck part of the boat: under the deck, cabin top, cockpit seats, cockpit sole, etc. You can see how it’s done in these two photos of the inside of the cockpit lockers:

Cockpit Lockers

Cockpit Locker - 2

So what is the core? It’s half inch thick square blocks of end grain balsa wood (cut across the gain to half inch thickness). End grain balsa is used for compression strength.  Seems to me like they are about one inch square. Again, the purpose is to give strength to a relatively thin layer of fiberglass, which by itself is relatively weak and flexible. You can give it strength by curving it (hull lapstrakes offer exceptional strength), by making it thick or by adding something to it like a stringer or core. The latter two act as I beams to prevent flexing. In the second photo above, looking inside the cockpit locker, on the lap strake just above that grey flexible hose is a round looking tube. That’s a stringer that’s been molded into the hull. there are others like those in the bow area under the bunks.

Balsa core on the deck offers exceptional strength for the weight it adds (good…..being that it is up high where you don’t want it messing with the center of gravity), and also insulates. The interior area backing the chain plates is cored for strength, through bolted to an interior backing plate for good measure. Rotted out core offers nothing but trouble. 

Ok, so this fix is not for the faint of heart. Removing core of any kind means opening up the boat. In this case, cutting off the inside fiberglass laid over the core. The core then has to be removed and replaced, and glassed back over.

How to cut it off? First thing is to completely empty out the boat. Everything goes because grinding is going to set fiberglass dust flying. Can’t be helped. I tried to git er done using that  Dremmel tool again, using a cutting wheel…..no joy. Then something like a rotozip….bits snapped like twigs. My light duty tools were all over matched. Wound up using a small angle head grinder with cutting wheel. For safety equipment, you need a good quality respirator (not the white mask types…..a real filtered respirator….unless you want to breath in glass dust). Also eye goggles and ear muffs. Ear protection is twofold. For hearing, and again, to keep that glass dust out of the ear canals. It is going everywhere (When the grinding was all done, I vacuumed her out, then power washed the entire insides, top to bottom….to get rid of all the glass dust).

Once those were cut out, the remnants of the core fell out. Black, wet mush. If you have rotten core, don’t even think about those creative fixes, such as penetrating epoxies you pump in to shore up the rot. Get rid of it. If you saw what I saw, you would agree with me.

Once the rot was gone….the entire core area…..I also had to clean up the remnant hard resin that formed between the core blocks during construction. Sanded it back to to smooth.

So what to go back with? Balsa core was what they used in the first place, but I didn’t have any. What I did have was marine plywood….1/4 inch fir. Two layers of that would equal the 1/2 inch thickness it started with.

Next problem is, the cabin area where the plates are is not flat. Well maybe a little at the bottom, but it starts curving above the plates and really curves at the turn of the cabin trunk sides running up onto the coach roof (cabin top). Whatever you go back with has to take a curve. The original 1/2 inch balsa core is glued to a scrim (cloth) that conforms to curves. I could do that, but didn’t have anyway to hold them in place (original construction would have been laid up upside down with gravity working with them). For the lower sections, I managed to get a piece of my glued up half inch ply to fit, ruling out gluing it in place in favor or scoring it so it would flex.

My Substitute Core Material

Using a radial arm saw, I scored the ply by making horizontal cuts through all but the last layer of ply. The more the bend, the more and closer the cuts. To push these in place and hold em until the epoxy setup, I used a small bottle jack braced to the other side of the cabin, pushing a 2×6 board set on the ply core cross ways. Flexing closes the cuts, but once it’s glued in place, any remaining gaps in the cuts are backfilled with thickened epoxy to form a solid piece. Even this short piece with 3 cuts will bend about an inch. Still, at the top the radius of the turn was about 3 inches where the core blended in to the coach roof, which was too steep to get a one piece ply core to take a bend, so I cut and mitered in narrow fitted pieces, glued in one at a time (about 3/4 inch high and the same width as the lower core). It finished up totally solid. I then formed a smoothing fillet along the side for the glass cloth to drape over and after filling all the cuts, covered the ply with several layers of glass cloth, to a glass thickness of about 3/16th inch. The edges were faired into the coach roof, then sanded out, and smoothed over. Once cured, painted over it with gelcoat to match the rest of the interior.

Before putting the chain plates back on, I drilled out the bolt holes oversized, then backfilled with thickened epoxy, then redrilled out the bolt holes. Again, any future leaks (I assume all holes eventually will leak), go past the core into the cabin. The epoxy bushings also take up a lot of the stress of shear and compression loads (substantial…. remember this is holding up the mast  ).

End game is it’s as solid if not more so than when new and no more leaks. 

Next up…..side lights.

Addendum:

On doing glass work like this, you are attempting to duplicate the original glass work in terms of thickness, type, etc. Glass boats are built from layers of fiberglass cloth and mat. Examples can be seen in this photo:

Fiberglass and Xynole Cloth, Mat and Roving

Glass cloth is woven strands of fiberglass. Mat is simply fiberglass strands layed up in a random pattern. Glass cloth adds strength and resistance to flexing. Mat doesn’t have much strength and is used for bulk. Normally, they are put down in alternating layers. The problem with Mat and epoxy is that for some types, there is a binding fiber that is used to hold the mat strands in place until it’s layed up, and the binder is “melted/destroyed” by polyester resin. Epoxy doesn’t “melt” the binder, so you don’t get it to drape and you may get voids. The word is you don’t use epoxy with mat (despite what it says on the package). An alternative is to use xynole polyester cloth, which also offers substantial bulk, but not much in terms of strength. Woven roving is also  a woven glass, but a very heavy version of it. It adds bulk and strength. OK for a flat layup, but it doesn’t flex much so it’s not much help in areas with sharp bends and curves. Epoxy and roving work OK, but wetout takes some effort. Wetout is critical, or you wind up with a void in your layup.

A layup of this thickness takes about 7 to 10 layers of something. This is thick enough to get some heat buildup and a premature kick to the epoxy if you try to put it all on at once. Use slow cure hardener and take your time. The first layers are the biggest in size…..overlapping the cored area by 2 or 3 inches…top, bottom and both sides….. and they get progressively smaller as you add more layers, so that the margins feather in to the margins of the core. Otherwise, you get a noticeable bump where the glass cloth over core ends. A little cabosil in the epoxy to thicken it a bit (but not so much as it won’t wet out), helps it hang in place vertically and upside down until it kicks.

But time and time again I’d leave the boat tied to the dock in good shape, only to come back in a week or two to find the cabin bunk cushions wet and water standing on the bunks. Sometimes at night it would rain drips would run down the side. I’d get wet. Cushions would get wet. It smelled wet. Time to get it fixed. After some deliberation, I decided the deck had to come off!! No other way to do it.

So how big of a job was this going to be? First way to find out was to pull the toe rails off. Once I did that, I was relieved to find the source of my leak. The fix wasn’t going to be nearly as drastic as I thought.

The older boats with metal toe rails have a hull/deck joint that looks like this:

Hull Deck Joint

During construction, the flange of the hull would have been coated with a sealant (probably 3M 5200 or something equal to it for this use), the deck set on top of that, the toe rail set in place and through bolted at 6 inch intervals. The high stress areas (toe rails on the older boats are used for jib leads) were doubled to every 3 inches. Just bolts. From memory, they might have been 3/4 inch #10 – 32 Stainless pan head screws with square nuts. No washers. Once you pull the screws, the toe rails popped right off.

What I found were a couple areas where the bedding material at the flange joint was shot. Loose and flaked right out. I poked around a bit and got more out. The “fix” was to grind out as much of this bedding as I could (I used a thin grinding wheel attachment on the Dremmel tool) to really open up this joint. Since I wanted it sealed and really didn’t want it to come off, I worked in thickened epoxy. For this, I used a syringe with a needle poked in the joint and squirted the goo in until it oozed out. Then worked the entire joint with more stuff. Once it set up, it was all sanded back smooth and recoated with plain epoxy to seal it.

While all that was going on, I took a look at those aluminum toe rails. They were beat up a little, but still solid. After wire brushing them as clean as I could get em, they were primed and painted with good ol Rustoleum….semi-gloss black. Three coats. They looked like new.

These had been caulked under the toe rail in addition to the joint, so I did the same putting them back. A small bead of 3M 4200 (it’s what I had) under the rail and over the side of the flange joint…..and proceeded to bolt them back on. Once finished, no more leaks. None (going on 5 years). What I had feared was going to be a brutal job turned out to be not so bad after all.

Other observations: the stem cap where the forestay pins to is held in place by maybe 6 or 8 screws, plus whatever bedding adhesive is used. A good place for 5200 if you never want to take it off. You shouldn’t have to very often. But that is all that’s holding it on. A lot of stress on the flange and 6 to 8 bolts and nuts.

Thoughts on the toe rails themselves. Of the two options (the newer models have a box top flange, also bolted, and a teak toe rail)…..my preference is the metal toe rail. Can’t say no maintenance after having just described how I painted it, but that’s all I’ve ever had to do. It also gives me attachment points for a lot of things, including jib leads, boom preventers, tarp tie downs, etc.

BTW, on the topic of preventers, I used two types. The quick and dirty type is a little dangerous. It’s a black rubber tarp tie down. Metal hooks on the end could be lethal if they let go and snapped back at me. I only use them in light air to hold the boom down to keep the main from flogging in boat chop. The real preventer is my boom vang, which has snatch blocks on the ends. I can take the bottom half of the vang to the toe rail, and it’s not going to budge.

Next topic….the chain plates….or rather the rotten core material that backed them up. That was fun.

Other than hardware, the boat is put together in three parts:

The hull, which includes the stub keel, is the bottom half of the boat, including all the lapstrake areas, transom, etc. Not many holes in this, except for the keel boats and any holes punch through for drains, CB bolts and some transom hardware, such as chainplates for backstays, rudder gudgeons, etc.

The cabin liner, which includes the quarter berths, forward cabin, and in the case the older boats like Audasea, the galley. This is basically fitted to and glued to the inside of the hull. A one piece layup of fiberglass, just like the deck and hull. In construction, saves a bunch of time fitting bulkheads, bunks, etc and assures an exact fit and replica every time.

The deck, which is the top half of the boat, including the cockpit, coamings, hatch, side decks, fore decks, etc. On the older boats, the metal toe rails were set over a flange joint and through bolted at about 6 inch intervals. In stress areas, every 3 inches. The deck would be laid up in the molds upside down. After enough glass is laid up, some areas of the cabin and and area under the cockpit sole got a core of 1/2″ balsa wood, then additional glass was laid up over that. A core over fiberglass acts like an I beam and offers significant strength for the weight.

Fiberglass isn’t going to leak through the glass itself. Water only gets past it at the margins, meaning any edges or holes. When leaks occur, holes are normally the culprits.

Most of the leaks I’ve had to fix are in the cabin top, including a running battle with leaks at the hull / deck joint. If you start counting, there may be as many as 40 to 50 holes punch through the cabin deck for mounting hardware. Ten or twelve in just the handrails alone, plus 6 each for side stay chainplates, etc. In short, a lot of places for leaks.

Other than being a nuisance, leaks don’t cause too many problems, UNLESS the hole was punched through and area of the balsa core. If that happens, it’s big trouble. Balsa is going to absorb the water like a sponge and once it gets in, it is trapped. The balsa starts to rot and that’s a problem. Loss of strength and gain in weight. You really don’t want your balsa core to get wet.

All hardware is caulked and bedded at the factory, but that only lasts so long. Eventually, all holes leak. The best way to avoid trouble is to drill the holes out and backfill them with thickened epoxy, which will soak into the balsa, sealing it, but also forms a waterproof bushing. Any leaks just drip into the cabin, bypassing the balsa core.

The best way to make this repair is to remove all the hardware (pull the bolts and pull off the hardware, i.e, turning block, cleat, hand rail, etc.). A good size to make the bushing is 1/2″ to 3/4 inch, depending on the size of the bolt. A 1/4″ bolt should have a 5/8″ to 3/4″ bushing poured. That means the hole has to be drilled out larger and it should be drilled out on the INSIDE. The outside hole isn’t touched. It will never look any bigger than it did at the factory.

Next problem is, you really don’t want a big hole inside the cabin either. It’s harder to do the epoxy plug with a large hole and it looks bad. So how do you remove a 5/8″ plug of core without drilling large holes? I used a saw blade on the Dremmel tool:

Dremel Tool

It’s 3/8″ in diameter. Stick it through a 3/8″ hole you drill through the liner on the inside and you can gain an additional 1/8″ all around the hole, making it 5/8″ wide. You then tape over the 3/8″ hole (use blue painter’s tape or gray duct tape) on the inside and pump/pour thickened epoxy in through the outside until the hole fills up. If you have trouble hitting the hole, use a 3 ml syringe without the needle (I get mine at a farm and home store that sells these for vet use on livestock). Once the epoxy sets up, you drill out the hole to the size bolt you need and you are done. Not only is the hole now waterproof, but you have poured a 5/8″ epoxy bushing that can also handle compression loads. I guess it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, all this talk of epoxy plugs, etc. only applies to areas with a balsa core.

When finished, your epoxy plug should look like this:

Proper Epoxy Plug

Last thing, when you re-bed your hardware, best product to use is Boat Life Caulk, a poly sulfide. Next best might be an easy to remove polyurethane like 3M 4200. Very few places you ever want to use 5200. It’s more adhesive than sealant. Use that and you will play hell ever getting the hardware off in the future. Lastly, when installing stuff, just set the screws down a bit to squeeze out the sealant and then stop and let it set up. Don’t tighten them all the way down until the stuff set’s up. That way, you compress it a bit. If you tighten it all the way first, you squeeze out all the sealant and don’t get a good seal.

Next topic……bedding the toe rails.

There is a better way. Epoxy resins. A better adhesive and much stronger in all aspects. If you are going to be making repairs epoxy should be your first choice. There are a variety of products out there, but I’ll save you the effort of trying to sort them out. Buy a gallon of epoxy resin and a quart each of fast and slow hardener from Raka. Along with that, some cabosil and wood flour as thickeners and some micro balloons for fairing compound and you are all set. You can also get your glass products from RAKA. Defender Industries has a number of different products to try. I have glass from both.

http://www.raka.com/

http://www.defender.com/

The reason I like RAKA, aside from price, which is close to half of what West Marine charges for the West System products, is they mix in a 2:1 ratio. No pumps, you measure what you need. In my view, a much better way to do it. As for strength, I’ve tested it a number of times with wood and the wood always breaks before the glue joint gives out. I’ve built a 10 plywood dinghy with the stuff. It works!

Working with epoxy is a learn as you go process, and with a few simple rules to follow, it seldom screws up.

What are the rules?

1. Mix in the proper ratio. 2:1 is really easy to measure by volume.
2. Watch your temps. Match your hardener to the temp and job. Not too fast, or two slow.
3. Mix it well.
4. Don’t over clamp it. It actually needs a bit of gap to gain full strength.

Beyond that, not much to worry about. There are a wide range of things you can fix with epoxy resin, glass and wood and almost nothing that can’t be undone if you screw it up.

Basic tools of the trade:

Basic Tools of the Trade

Mixing cups for all occasions. From 7.5 ml all the way up to half a gallon. Try that with a pump!

Stripped down and ready for some TLC

First a little about the boat. Here she is, stripped down and awaiting TLC.    Here’s the view from astern:

Stern View at Purchase

This particular boat is a 1978 galley model M17. I purchased her in in 1999. Known history prior to that is short, having been owned and sailed by Thomas Howe and he sold her to a guy named Mike C., also from Lawrence, KS, and I purchased her from Mike. She has gone by the names of Renaissance (named I presume from having been revived), Osprey, Blue Feather Grace and is now called Audasea. That I’ve done quite a bit of work to her downstream of the efforts of previous owners says something about the need for constant maintenance, or else raises questions about the quality of work we have been doing.

At any rate, I have done a lot of work to this boat. At some point during each significant project, it has struck me that it would be nice to have some guidance from someone who has been down the same path, faced the same problem, etc. In fact, at one point I actually considered offering my services in the rehab of these marvelous little boats. But rather than doing that, I’ve decided to open a blog on what I’ve discovered and the methods I’ve used to fix them. None of these projects are overwhelming to someone with basic skills and more importantly, desire. There are jobs we amateurs should not attempt, but I think of this a little like the court that couldn’t decide on how to define indecency, but concluded “you will know it when you see it”. You will know when you are in over your head.

The projects I’ve completed include finding and stopping numerous leaks (including replacement of the windows), changes in the electrical system, pulling and rehabbing the CB, refinishing the teak, changes to the running and standing rigging, experiments with motors, trolling motors, sculling oars, wind vanes, transom repairs, gel coat dings, etc. Then there is the trailer and modifications to that.  Having participated in the Montgomery Email list for over 8 years, the few problems these boats develop are pretty well known. The same things pop up time and time again. Hopefully, if you are starting down this path, something I’ve done will help you. If you have a better idea, feel free to pile on. I’m always receptive to a better way.