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This morning after a week of pause I I've been back on my Weekender. Because of recent storms I've found about 10 cm of water in the cockpit (usually I find 5 cm every Saturday, this time more...) and a film of water also inside the cabin, I suppose originated from a water way in the underseat partition.
As usual I took a bucket, I removed roughly water from cockpit and then I left the marina. Once out I took completely water off from side bays, from the cockpit and from the cabin.
Finally I enjoyed sailing for a couple of hours and then back to the marina.
Only in that moment I noticed a bubble below the lazarete paint. I pushed it with my finger and it went completely  through the plywood till the other side,  finding the same resistance of a sponge!
With the same finger I enlarged the hole removing paper pulp all around!
Once moored I removed by a cutter blade most of  this pulp from the base stringer to the hatch frame. I find also in both sides, just in the same position near the edge soft wood below the surface (but not so soft as in the lazarete): I suppose that water trapped between glass cloth and plywood did all this (how long ?).

A couple of hour later all was mostly dried, but now I’m really worried.
Could this affect also the hull and make my boat sink?
How can I stop this?
Should I protect these new opened borders waiting for reparation? In this position they are regularly submerge by rain water and in North Italy rain are abundant  in  September!
Should I remove all tainted wood or can it be saved?

Please tell me your experience about or your advices.

Gianluigi

I'm sure there are more qualified people on the board to give advice, but here's what I'd do:
1: dig out all the rotten wood as you've already started to do
2: let it dry completely
3: fill in with epoxy / wood as needed
4: it sounds like you get a lot of water in the boat while its not being used, is it possible
    to cover the cockpit with a tarp when not in use? That's what I do , it's a pain but its worth
    it to prevent a lot of standing water in the boat

Good luck!

Bob

You can't "save" wood once it's rotted. Treat it like cancer in a body part - cut it out, make sure you get it all or it'll come back, then patch it up.

If you allow water to pool in spaces within the boat, this will be a continuing problem, progressively getting worse with time. Setup a bilge pump to get the bulk of the water out or install a drain of some sort.

If you must leave the boat on a mooring or in a slip, the sheathing needs to be fairly heavy to protect the wood from standing water. The same applies to the outside of the boat.

any luck with the repairs yet?

(09-22-2013, 03:58 AM)bob lee link Wrote: [ -> ]any luck with the repairs yet?

After a week of dry weather soft points on side hatches have renewed consistency, they are now harder, I hope thet once they are completely dry, I can water seal them with epoxy / enemal and  freeze the deterioration.

The "hole" has been covered with duct tape on both side, in order to protect it from rain and let it dry.
Meanwhile I have prepared a protection sheet from my new polytarp sail scrap.

By the way, last week was not really "dry", but rain was not stormy and drain holes below gunwales did their work, in the cocpit floor there was only 1 cm of water near the cabin.

Gianluigi

As far as I know (which isn't very far), rain water is much more dangerous to wood than sea water, the rotting things live better without all that salt. I would not feel comfortable with rain water pooling in my boat (if I had one).

be careful, once plywood has been wet enough to be "squishy" it likely means the laminations have orwill fail, even if it dries right out, youd be able to dig through it easily. might want to cut it out till you hit totally dry wood.

Marine plywood or WPB adhesive exterior plywood will dry out and be just fine, though this can take some time.