Leaking Deck Fills - Issue Closed

 

One the more obvious culprits in the leak caper were the deck fills.  While the deck fill for the diesel fuel seem to be as tight as a drum, the 2 fresh water fills were open sluice gates for rain water.  It is fairly clear when one watches a torrent of water cascade down the water hoses!

At first, I thought this was the issue that accounted for all of the damage.  Not a bad assumption since the majority of the dry-rot was in the vicinity of these deck fills.  However, nothing is ever that easy on an old boat, and I found out later that I had just begun my water immersion!

To fix these leaks, it was not enough to just re-bed the bronze deck plates.  I needed to ensure that the deck core was not saturated or rotten:  this was my biggest fear.  However, I was much relieved to find that the 3/4' plywood deck core was as solid as could be.  However, I noticed that the holes cut into the deck and the holes for the attaching screws were much larger than needed and could never be thoroughly sealed.

So, the game plan was to remove deck fills, seal and patch the deck, and then later install new deck fills in a new spot on the deck.  The last step would be fairly easy once I bought new deck fills and drilled new holes, but more on that later when we get to it.
Steps 1 and 2, however, would require a bit of creativity and aesthetic magic.

To simply patch and forget wouldn't work.  The deck was a fiberglass sandwich of 3/4' marine plywood covered with 13/16' teak decking.  The fix had to be watertight to prevent water intrusion into the deck core, and had to be a reasonable blend with the existing teak decking.

The first piece was to seal the underside of the deck with epoxy and fiberglass cloth.  Not a big deal using West System epoxy and 3 layers of 10 ounce cloth, BUT this was on an overhead surface.  So, care needed to be taken to not overdue the epoxy to cause drips.  Using the fast cure hardener kept the process quick.

Next, the exposed plywood core needed to be sealed so that a plug could be inserted to fill the roughly 1.5 inch deep hole.  The cutting of a 5/8' marine plywood plug allowed enough room for epoxy and 2 layers of bedding cloth to get the surface up to the original deck level.  I then used a hole saw  (sans the pilot drill) with a diameter about 1/4' less than the diameter of the hole to cut a plug out of 1" thick teak.  This teak plug was set into a slurry of epoxy and adhesive filler.


Teak Plug with seam compound in place - diesel fill to the left

Once the epoxy had cured, I was able to fill the gap around the teak plug with a appropriate black seam compound.  When that cured, I took a belt sander to reduce everything to deck level.  The finished product blended fairly well with the existing teak decking.

Starboard deck fill completed

The best thing was that the deck fill holes no longer leaked!  I knew that I had to eventually re-bed the seams on the entire teak deck, but that could wait until later.  For now, I could move onto other project areas!

Fair Winds and Following Seas!