re-coring

Leaky-teaky is a playful name that haunts Hudson and Formosa builds. Honestly, it probably haunts every boat with a teak deck, built over 10 years ago. As it sounds, leaky-teak refers to the leaking of teak decks. This ends up happening because teak decks are often screwed down into the fiberglass deck, rather than say, glueing or epoxying them down. And though one might argue that decks are screwed down with some kind of sealant to avoid such problems, that sealant fails after so many years. Water eats through everything if you give it enough time.

When we replaced the bowsprit on Marauder, Martin also had to re-core the bow as it was completely rotted through and this was an important structural point on the boat. Beneath the fiberglass, he found one inch of rotten marine plywood. He tore out all the old rotting wood and prepped it for new material.

Ideally, Martin would have re-cored with a fiber-reinforced foam that he normally works with, but we didn't know at the time that it was available via a local friend until he was almost done with the project.

That being said, Martin ended up re-coring with penetrate-epoxy reinforced marine plywood. Once we got our hands on the foam material aforementioned, he then added one more layer to our core to make it practically bulletproof. He chose to make the core as strong as he did so it could structurally support the windlass, the bowsprit and all the forces that act on them.

After his beautiful fiberglass job, I came it and faired it with Awlfair. I then painted with Awlgrip, a favored 2-part epoxy paint of mine. We had Snow White on hand, but the next time I paint the boat I think I'll go with a beige.

Before we took off for Hawaii, I added some cream Kiwi Grip. Fast forward two years, the Kiwi Grip is still great. I will say though that I may eventually change the non-skid to Awlgrip. Both are functional, and Kiwi Grip is definitely a million times more user friendly. It really just boils down to a personal style preference.