As with many Tritons, Dasein has problems with water getting into the deck core, primarily due to poorly bedded hardware. This problem was especially evident around the stanchion bases. Last fall I removed the lifelines and stanchions, with the idea that leaving the holes open over the winter might help dry the core in the area immediately around those openings.

Cosmetic or something more?

A few days ago, we had a wonderful 50 degree day, and I felt inspired to pull back the boat cover and have a closer look at the deck situation. As you can see in this photo, the condition of the decks leaves quite a bit to be desired! It appears that the deck has been either painted or re-gelcoated at some time in the past, although that has done little to improve the condition. In many areas the top layer of gelcoat/paint is actually chipping and flaking away. In most of these areas, the original layer of gelcoat is still in place. In some areas, however, the flaking has exposed bare fiberglass. Although it is difficult to see in this photo, the area immediately around, and beneath the stanchion base is actually compressed and exhibits signs of severe flexing.

At this point, I really wasn't clear as to how I wanted to proceed. Although I have had the idea that I would probably need to recore the decks in the back of my mind, I was really hoping that I could put it off until sometime in the future. Preferably FAR in the future! With that in mind, I decided to do a little exploratory probing.

Probing the Problem

I took my drill, with a 3/8 inch bit, and started drilling a few holes through the top layer of the deck skin and into the core to assess the situation. To my surprise, it appeared that the wetness only extended about 10 inches or so forward and aft of the stancion base, and about 1/2 way across the side deck. Encouraged, I spent about 45 minutes with a bent nail held in locking pliers scraping the damp balsa out of the holes. This is a very time consuming project, and became tiresome quite quickly. But on the bright side, I figured that I would be able to simply shoot that space full of thickened epoxy and be done with it.

Check out that seafoam green gelcoat hidden underneath the "white." That color makes me seasick. Even when I'm on dry land.

Anyway, I vacumed the area clean of wet balsa material, and spent a few minutes with the sander to clean the area up a bit. Notice that grey epoxy filler that someone used at some point to "repair" the deck compression that was occuring under the stanchion base. Not that they bothered to fix the real problem. . .  At about the time I reached that point, the temperature really began to plummet, and a brisk wind picked up, so I packed it in and closed up the boat, feeling pretty pleased that I was probably going to be able to avoid a recore, at least for quite some time.

Extensive Moisture

Several days later, we had another nice early spring day, and I headed back out to the boat, thinkng that I would open up the rest of the stanchion base areas, to let them dry for a few weeks before shooting everything full of epoxy. I headed up to the next stanchion base and started drilling some test holes as I had done before, looking for the extent of the wetness.

I wasn't so pleased with myself this time!

To cut a long story short, I have reconsidered my plan to indefinitely put off the recore project. The forward decks seem to be basically full of water. The core is still pretty solid, and the decks don't yet show any sign of flex under foot. But it is WET up there. Big areas of wet. Not sopping, but pretty seriously damp. I decided that if the drilling was going to be that extensive, it really would be much easier to simply cut the top skin off, and do it right. Scraping the core out of those little holes just isn't that easy!

Sooooo. I still plan to put off the recore, since the decks are still solid at this point. But I may only be putting it off until after this season. Anyone up for a recore?

At this point, the plan is to scrape the wet balsa from the areas immediately under and around the stanchion bases, and fill that with epoxy, to at least stop the water intrusion, as well as to provide a stable base for the stancions. However, this will only forestall the inevitable, I fear.