Hull Damage from trailer

[K.C. Walker]

I always feel that it's my obligation to at least mention that it could be cheaper to buy a boat that's in good condition. Being that you are entering into this with your eyes open… I say bring on the fun! I'll stay tuned and be happy to throw in my $.02.

[GreenLake]

Sounds like you are (as K.C. put it) getting into this with your eyes open, and starting from zero dollars, gives you a bit more room before another hull would be financially competitive.

From your description it sounds like doing the work is more than half the fun for you, so I wish you best of luck.

[Swashbuckley]

Yes, the project is half the fun. As my wife says it keeps me out of trouble. The trick was finding one that was within my skill set. And this group is being very helpful. I do appreciate the warnings but they are about 30 years and 10 boats too late.

[Swashbuckley]

Latest update, after quite a bit of sanding to remove the 'ablative' bottom paint, I found quite a bit more damage to the hull from PO adventures. So to expedite the repairs to the hull I removed the cockpit sole. I made this decision partially because I am not fond of working through small holes. What I found was quite informative and made me glad I took this step.



Note from the picture that the factory stringers are not the same length. Why? Port roundings are more common?
Why so much space between the sole and the hull? I mean 6 to 8 inches is a lot of legroom to just give up.
I also found that the support flange on the CB trunk is not the same distance from the sole trunk at the front and back. At the front it almost touches and is about 1 1/2" from it at the back. Should it not be the same?
I was also surprised that there was not more lateral support for the CB trunk. Like shouldn't the sole support flange have been at least glued to the sole? Or another flange at the bottom where the trunk and hull meet?
I also found that almost all stringers suffered from failure at at least one spot.
So my repair design is back on the drawing board for review. I am having more fun than I anticipated. New stringers and ribs all around, sandwich core, massive FG layers, or just wood? I can say that the new sole will provide more legroom. Maybe return to something similar to a DS I.

I have started adding weight inside the hull to start returning the shape to near original. Next will be the structural reinforcements.

[talbot]

Fascinating. From hardware and configuration, your boat looks about like mine. I think they were doing a lot of experimentation when they first made our DS II's. Like, how cheaply/quickly can we do this? Could we just retrofit x so it will now look like y? There are structural parts of my boat that look like they were done in a garage, not a factory, and they look very different from later models.

Anyway, I think the deep bilge area is necessary to get the cabin floor above the waterline. Otherwise, the self-bailer is just a hole in the boat. I imagine the assumption about the CB trunk was that the cabin sole was supposed to support it. But that support is so close to the hull that I doubt it made up for the loss of the thwarts bracing the top of the trunk. In my own DS-I regression, I installed thwarts. And in my imagination, the boat is stiffer and points higher. Note that the current Cape Cod Shipbuilding Day Sailers essentially have a DS I cockpit (with thwarts) and a DS II cabin.

[Swashbuckley]

Talbot, I had not thought about the self bailer aspect. I think you are right. At my height I will appreciate the legroom more than a self bailer. I was also surprised at how much thicker the FG was for the cockpit sole than the hull. I am planning on building in two storage lockers in the forward sole area, about half the length of the cb trunk. I will use this structure to replace the thwarts that the DSI's have. I also know when I am done she will be stiff and durable. So she will be a 1.5? or 2.5? With the hull exposed I can really see the oilcan effect that I have read about in other threads.

[K.C. Walker]

I kind of think that O'Day was not very concerned with appearances where they knew no one would be looking (little did they know you're going to cut out the floor). This definitely looks like the right approach.

It does not appear that you have decided how to reinforce the hull. Because you are not intending this to be a race boat or a high-performance boat, you could stand to have a bit of extra weight. After all, you just removed a bunch of weight that was the cockpit floor. One thought I had was that you could use spruce or some other lightweight straight grained wood for stringers. Because it's a really soft hull you could space the stringers fairly close together (5"-6"). You could dry fit the stringers where you want them drill holes through them and through the hull, make the hole clearance big enough so that you would be able to screw them down to a well waxed 2 x 4 that a helper would hold on the outside of the hull. This way you could pull the hull into shape and even pretty fair while reinforcing.

If you used epoxy to encapsulate the wood parts you should have no problems with rot, of course making sure you can drain the bilge. I don't see why you would need more than stock lumber dimensions, like three-quarter inch tall stringers. If you wanted to make the bilge super stiff you could screw a floor to the top of the stringers. If you wanted to make it stiffer yet, you could tie this all into the bulkhead and seat tanks.

I'm looking forward to more pictures of progress and the rest of the fun!

[talbot]

KC: Question about through-drilling the hull to straighten in out-- How would you recommend finishing off the hull after removing the 2x4 from the outside?

[K.C. Walker]

Oh yeah, did I say wax the screws really well too! After pulling the screws and the 2 x 4s use a countersink bit in a drill on the outside. I used fumed silica mixed with epoxy to fill mine. This stuff doesn't sand well as it's super hard. I knew that I would be using fairing compound over the top of that. It is the same method that I used for repairing the blisters on my boat, as well.

[GreenLake]

That presupposes that the hull is being painted afterwards. Just in case that's not planned, 3M high strength Marine Filler and a touch-up with a gel-coat repair kit would be an alternative.

[K.C. Walker]

Yes, Green Lake is correct that I was assuming you would be painting the bottom. When I did mine I did an epoxy barrier coat, because I also had blister problems. I used graphite powder as the pigment in straight epoxy and it's held up very well.

[talbot]

I had good results with the Interlux "Interprotect" system. After years of fussing with antifouling paint, I switched to Interlux white underwater epoxy with Teflon for the wet surface. The hull gets yukky from lake slime, but the paint is so hard that it's pretty easy to clean off the algae. Interlux told me not to use any pigment with the paint, because their tests showed that any additives reduced the hardness of the cured surface. They said there's no point waxing it. It won't absorb any of the wax, and once it's applied and polished, you can't get it any slicker. It's drawback? It's epoxy, so it's for underwater only. Exposed to the sun, it will degrade in UV. I used it on my rudder blade (stored dry in the cockpit), and indeed, the stuff turns yellow over the season. I now have a canvas sock to pull over the blade when not in use.

[Windnsails]

"Having done a major gel coat blister repair last year ..."

My DS III is new to me this month. It has some "deep" gouges in the finish on the bottom which may have been from misalignment with the trailer while loading or launching. They do not penetrate the Fiberglas. I'd like to fill them in and fill the long shallow grooves and repair the gel coat. Do you have suggestions for doing that?

Also, somewhere in this thread (i read it all) a comment related to the trailer (2x4) bunk boards suggested that they should be large flat side to the boat, not narrow side. Is this true?

[talbot]

I've never seen a boat as big as a DS (600#) with the bunks on edge. I think they should be flat, and the weight distributed between the keel rollers and the bunks. That is, I think the boat should be tight on the bunks, with the keel rollers too tight to turn by hand.

There is lots of information here, on vendor sites, and in DIY books on hull repair. Check out the Jamestown Distributors video series or the Interlux web site. If the gouges are into, but not through, the glass laminate, I would repair the laminate with epoxy resin or structural filler like Marine-Tex. You have to let it thoroughly cure, then wash off any amine blush with soap and water, sand, and finally wipe down with acetone. Otherwise, the gel-coat won't stick. Then you match (ha!) the polyester gelcoat color. I've never actually been able to pull off this step. You add tiny amounts of Evercoat pigment to uncatalized gelcoat until you match (ha!) the color, then add the catalyst and fill surface gouge.

Earlier, someone mentioned painting. That's a big job, and I don't recommend it unless and until your hull is in really bad shape. Paint of course gets scraped all the time, but it's much easier than gel coat to reapply. Prior to painting, the gel coat is usually sanded and sealed with epoxy, and you don't have to mess with the polyester after that.

In terms of priority, I would be most concerned with getting the trailer support right.

[GreenLake]

8" should be considered about the minimum width for bunks. Certainly not 4" (and 12" would be even better).

Some people advocate replacing the keel rollers by a keel bunk. If that's not for you, I found that the boat loads better if the rear is only supported by the bunks -- so I dropped the last roller 2", that still supports the bow when the boat is launched or retrieved, but as soon as the flat parts of the hull are out of the water, they are supported by bunks.

Ever since that change, the boat is perfectly centered on retrieval.

The next roller or two are under the CB on my trailer, I keep them so they are tight enough to support the CB, but not so tight that they offload the bunks.

The front rollers support the V section of the keel. (I don't trailer for long distances and from just sitting on the trailer there's no observable deformation - the laminate there is pretty strong (and backed on the inside by the keelson).

If you do plan on extended travel with trailer, consider an all-bunk layout, because it's the least damaging over the long haul.