[Public-List] Dinghy attack...

[Anders Bro via Public-List]

Hi Gord,
I so enjoy your prose! :-)
In any case I wanted to relate to you another experience that I had with 
my Pearson Ariel (26' Alberg design) in which the open keel space was 
filled (by design) with foam. The short story is that this foam had been 
drained before I got the boat (patched drill holes in the hull), and I 
had to do it again. (Instead I installed a drain plug and removed all 
the foam I could reach.) But when reading the maintenance/repair manual 
put out by the San Francisco Bay Area Ariel group, it seems that this 
was a common problem with the Ariels. That waterproof foam would become 
waterlogged. Since this space was isolated by a fiberglass topping, 
there was no path for that water down into the keel area... so the folks 
who contributed to the manual have attributed the water to osmosis 
through the hull. I was particularly interested in getting the water out 
as I live in Maine where cold winters can freeze that water (yes even if 
it is salt water), resulting in hull damage. I might add that the foam 
had been evacuated and replaced once before. This experience makes we 
contemplate the suitabliity of using foam filled flotation zones in 
areas that are below the water line.
Anders

On 06/12/2016 12:43 PM, Gordon Laco via Public-List wrote:
> Hello gang.
>
> So here we are in the middle of June... It¹s unseasonably cool out here on
> Georgian Bay but blowing the dog off the chain.  Why am I not sailing?
> Because I¹ve decided to attack my Boston Whaler Squall dinghy once and for
> all.   I¹ve written in the past about my attempts to force it into a weight
> loss programme, but as with all of it¹s ilk, it¹s been getting heavier and
> heavier.  Twice I¹ve drilled its bottom full of holes and parked it over
> gentle heat in my warehouse... I¹ve kidded myself that it¹s gotten lighter,
> but I know not really.
>
> This winter was the second try.  I assembled six people (including myself)
> to turn it over so I could repair the drain/evaporation holes and found that
> six of us couldn¹t turn the thing over without great danger and distress.
> It weights a ton; well not really but far more that it¹s supposed to and not
> much less than when with great difficulty we got it into the warehouse last
> fall.
>
> I decided it was time to replace it.  Towing the thing is like towing a beer
> barrel... It makes more wake than SURPRISE does and I just can¹t stand the
> speed having it astern knocks off us.  At anchorages I much like rowing and
> sailing it, but it¹s just too heavy.
>
> I¹ve spoken with Boston Whaler Corp a few times and was much impressed at
> the friendly efficiency their Customer Service Manager showed.  I gave him
> my boat¹s serial number and he was able to tell me it was first sold in 1966
> at ŒDallas Marine¹ way over in Texas.  How it got from there to Parry Sound
> where I bought it I¹ll never know... But one thing I do know is that it¹s
> absorbed a lot of water during its fifty years of life.    Boston Whaler had
> no specific advice to offer about how to drain the boat but they did say
> categorically that their foam does not absorb water... What water is in the
> boat is in the spaces created by delaminating between the foam and the inner
> and outer skins.  I recall from high school physics that a cubic foot of
> water weighs 62lbs...  And the boat is clearly over 100lbs overweight
> (probably much more) ... Where could all these delaminating spaces be?
>
> Well, they¹re wrong.   The water was not in any voids caused by
> delaminating.
>
> Yesterday, Caroline and I took a rotary saw to the bottom and cut two big
> banana shaped pieces off the bottom, port and starboard of the keel.  Sure
> enough, the pieces of bottom skin tore off very easily ­ they¹d delaminated
> from the foam core ­ but guess what, there was no pool of water to spill
> away.  The foam was saturated. The hundreds of pounds of water in the boat
> was in the foam.  We spent the rest of yesterday and this morning carving
> out the soaked foam... We reckon more than 200lbs of it.  Fantastic.  The
> foam had the consistency of watermelon.  It was that wet and soggy.
>
> Well the boat is all carved out now ­ we¹ve mined and tunneled through it
> following all the wet foam we found.  I¹m sure there¹s more, but the areas
> left are all small so keeping in mind that a cubic foot of water weighs
> 62lbs, there¹s not room for much water left in the places we haven¹t dug
> into.  And, my wife and I were easily able to pick up the boat to move it
> around ­ I think it¹s 1/3 the weight it was.  Yahoo.
>
> So now I¹m going to stiffen the bottom banana sections with roving and
> epoxy, put a few tabs and false ribs of wood bridging the empty spaces in
> the boat where the soggy foam was, then slap the bottom back on.  I¹m going
> to cover the whole shebang with cloth and epoxy, paint it, and have my
> lightened Squall dinghy back.   We had thoroughly removed foam, wet and dry,
> from the after half of the boat when it occurred to me that if I left
> Œflying buttresses of good foam in place, we¹d have the shape of the bottom
> again.  Well like the comic said Œtoo soon old, too late schmart¹.   I¹ll
> have to build a former of some sort in the after part to support the bottom.
> Whalers are basically foam boats with a thin skin of glass inside and out...
> With the foam gone I¹ve got to give the boat some strength back.  No
> problem.
>
> I¹m going to put three inspection ports into it¹s bottom so I can pump out
> any water that makes it¹s way back in... And repair the place the water was
> getting it.  Yes we found it.  There is a nifty little locker in the stern
> seat with a drain that leads into the main part of the dinghy¹s false
> bottom.  Some time in the past whatever the tube connected the locker with
> the outlet disintegrated (we hardly found a trace of it) so whenever there
> was water in that locker most of what drained out went into the foam.  I¹m
> putting a couple of brass nipples in with a piece of vinyl tube and presto,
> no problem.
>
> Gord #426 Surprise
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