This bulletin board, hosted by the CDSOA, Inc., is the on-line meeting place for all Cape Dory owners and groups. We welcome everyone's questions, answers and comments about Cape Dory sailboat
Hummm - good points that foam weighs more than air and can get waterlogged but that it will stay functional if damaged and not waterlogged.
I like the cooler idea but probably will stay with a portable one just because the project will get out of hand - next I'll be adding a head, galley and AC
Given multiple float cavities I am leaning toward a waterproof access port in the stern and no foam, but I may change my mind as the project evolves.
I need to go clean out a place in the garage for the boat and start cutting - It is time to get started. I'll take pictures.
Matt Ashenden
- I used to like boating and fixing stuff, then I bought a couple of boats and now I just fix stuff
On the one that I did I filled the space under the seat with Ethafoam.
A closed cell foam. Not cheap but leaves no requirement to maintain a air tight area. In fact with the foam in place you can drill a drain hole in the lowest point to make sure water does get captured.
Since you are not producing a boat commercially you do not have to adhere to the legal requirements regarding flotation, but the USCG does not allow voids to serve as flotation. As noted, any penetration into a void can allow the air to escape along with its ability to keep your boat afloat. Although not legally required to follow the USCG requirements you might want to calculate how much flotation you do need to keep your boat from sinking if swamped. Then you can decide if you want to use the space for storage or flotation (even if sealed, space used for storage can't all be used for flotation because you have stuff in there). Styrofoam has approximately 55 pounds of positive buoyancy per cubic foot. Your fiberglass boat will have a negative buoyancy of approximately half its dry weight. Throw in a few more pounds for gear and margin of safety and see if your boat will float or sink.
Over the winter and spring I finished the transom repair and also replaced the gunwales with teak (ca-ching$$, but soooo worth it). My CD-10 is now structurally sound and the wood is all shiny. It could use a coat of Perfection on the sides but that is for another winter.
We relaunched her on the weekend after July 4th, which was a blast, but then got busy doing other things.
This weekend I sailed her on the Corrottoman River here in VA, in 20-30 knots and a small craft warning. The boat did awesome!! It was well worth the time spent fixing her up.
If anyone wants pictures of how I did the transom job, just send me an e-mail. I'd be glad to share the lessons learned.
Matt Ashenden
- I used to like boating and fixing stuff, then I bought a couple of boats and now I just fix stuff
What a timely topic! I am almost finished with the interior rebuild of my CD 10 - the model with the liner. The transom delamination seemed to only go about 3-5 inches down from the surface so I didn't want to cut the stern off to replace the wood. Instead i saturated the very dry wood (it had been stored indoors for about 3 years while I worked unp the nerve to get started) with an acetone thinned West Epoxy. After letting that cure for a while I added a thickened epoxy with adhesive fibers and filled the void to the top. After it settled I kept adding more until it was finished. I decided not to clamp the transom and merely let the 1/8" to 1/4" void fill with thickened epoxy. I am certain that this repair will last much longer than I or my grandchildren. I also have found many cracks in the thin inner lining which I have just finished dremelling out and filling then fairing. In about 2 weeks I should be ready to prime the interior then paint. The Mahogany seats have been coated with 5 or 6 coats of Epifanes varnish (like a mirror) and I can't wait until I start assembling the new rub rail sections and scarfing them in. Certainly a labor of love at what will be $1 per hour labor when I am finished - but worth it. Can't wait to row and sail her - hopefully next summer!
I wrestled with taking the approach you took and almost went that direction but after cutting my transom out (inside liner part only), it was a good thing I did not try saturating. The old plywood was all but dust. It sounds like yours was not quite that far gone.
As it turned out, the cutting approach really was not as drastic as I dreaded. The only signs of the operation are two 5" incisions on the inside corners. The rest is covered by the seats. I probably will not bother painting my interior.
Although not the original design, I took the rub rails to a point at the bow. It looks really cool, although I am sure the first thing I hit will round it off nicely:)
Getting the rub rails in place was probably the hardest part of everything I did. I set up my belt sander with a wooden guide to sand the old glue off without sanding the visible parts of the sides. Then when putting in the new wood, I used a few 2x4s from side to side that were strapped down to the trailer and overhanging the boat just a bit. These served as guides to keep the new wood from springing out of place while I clamped. It probably goes without saying but I did the inside first, then the outside. It also took several test clampings on each piece to get the fit right.
I did not like the way the white and blue paint showed up as lines between the two new pieces of teak, so I taped and painted the fiberglass edge gloss black before putting on a few coats of epoxy. It looks much, much better. 20/20 hindsight - It would be a lot easier to paint the exposed fiberglass edge before attaching the new wood, although I am sure some of the black paint would get sanded off as the new wood is finished.
I still need a few more coats of varnish but other than that I am really happy with the results, both aesthetically and performance-wise.
A fun little boat. Please let us know when you launch. Enjoy.
Matt Ashenden
- I used to like boating and fixing stuff, then I bought a couple of boats and now I just fix stuff
It is very interesting reading all the comments. I recently refurbished the version of CD10 with full liner. The transom laminant was partially delaminated but after reading of the work involved with the inner liner, and the enormous work I already did on repairing all the cracks and holes in the hull and liner I decided to clean out all loose wood, saturate with acetone and then let it dry. I then filled with a thinned West system epoxy so as to soak into the dry wood. I then added layer after layer of thickened resin to fill in the void - clamping the laminant as tight as I could. It has been 3 years and no movement has occurred and the seam is tight. I figured that if it didn't work, I would cut the external laminant off but now I am glad that I didn't. I filled in all screw holes on the seat supports with cloth and epoxy - then sanded and re-drilled. When the seats were installed I caulked both the screw hole, screw threads and countersink in the wood seats. They should not leak! I left the air tanks empty but used the expandable stoppers to keep water out of the seat tanks (corks worked for the first year however!) I also painted the non skid after a thorough cleaning and added a small amount of sand to improve traction. The boat is a beauty after using a barrier coat on the entire external hull with Pettit EasyPoxy above the waterline.
The CD 10 is a beauty and gets a lot of comments! How did you post photos with your discussion? I would like to post some of mine but am not sure as to how to do it.
Don't know if this would work in your situation but I've been using Foam Pool noodles for any areas I would like to add flotation to. Cheap, easy to cut and put in place and can be removed if needed.
