Hull repair

[Tim]

Did you come across any cottage cheese core while you were at it?  Hope not.

No not bad at all. The one hole on the port which obviously had at one time been the hawes pipe inlet was a little crumbly in about an inch, so I dug in a couple of inches and fill before patching.

My biggest problem was backing and then reinforcing up in the chain locker access. Man it was ugly and painful I don't want to think about it so I won't say more.  ;D

I over drilled and filled all the mounting hole for the new cleats at the same time.

I plan on being a filling, fairing filleting fool until we take off for the PNW next week!

[Christopher]

The Ariel/Commanders have cockpit and deck drains that go through. They are not designed to have a seacocks. But like any hole below waterline they have a potential for leaking. Modifications by owners sometimes reroute the drains so they are not below waterline, something I am contemplating currently. CJ did his on Tehani documented somewhere here on the site.

On an Ariel I looked at, there are holes drilled in the sidedecks just behind the sidedeck cleats and winches.  There are no fittings and appear to be drain holes for the the decks.  The seller said this was original and by design.  I would expect holes drilled in the decking to have some sort of fittings to protect the interior of the deck from water... Has anyone seen this on other ariels?

[s/v Faith]

.....holes drilled in the sidedecks just behind the sidedeck cleats and winches.  There are no fittings and appear to be drain holes for the the decks.  The seller said this was original and by design.  I would expect holes drilled in the decking to have some sort of fittings to protect the interior of the deck from water... Has anyone seen this on other ariels?

These are different then the cockpit drains.  These drains are to prevent water from standing on the toe rail, and are connected via a fiberglass 'tunnel' to openings below the waterline.  These generally are pretty much bullet proof, and require no modification or attention.

  There are a second set aft, just in front of the transom on some boats (Faith is one).  These help drain the water that does not want to go up hill the last couple of inches to go over the transom (it is about 3/8" higher then the drain). 

  The really cool thing about this set up is that you can use 2 corks and block the drains fwd, and then connect the aft drains to a fill tube and you have an installed rain collection system.

  Of course you need to let the water wash the decks first, and I would not use it underway but considering all you need to add are 2 corks and  some hose it is a pretty simple mod to make.   ;D

[Christopher]

Okay - that just looked really odd.

It's funny from the rookie perspective looking at all these boats.  Besides holes in decks, I would have expected the hull itself would be one thing that needs to be watertight, but there are holes all over the place!

[mitiempo]

Here's a link to West Epoxy's fibreglass repair manual - it really explains all you may have to do to repair a fibreglass boat with epoxy, cloth, and fillers. http://www.westsystem.com/ss/assets/HowTo-Publications/Fiberglass-Boat-Repair-and-Maintenance.pdf
Brian