Soft spot in deck - how to reinforce

[jefflw]

I just found a soft spot in the deck of my DS3. Forward of the raised part of the cuddy, port side. I was kneeling on it while cleaning the deck and heard it starting to crack (nothing visible though). Its in between the two supporting ribs found inside the cuddy. Is it possible to use angle iron/flat fixing plate to reinforce, by attaching to each of the existing support ribs? I guess what ever is used needs to be able to curve with the shape of the deck.

I found one post that suggests the existing ribs contain rebar?

If attaching to the existing ribs is not an option, how about just attaching to the deck, which would mean drilling holes and having bolts visible top side?

[Roger]

As far as I know from the DS II (assuming the III is the same), the deck is solid fg laminate, no core. If you heard cracks, the first thing you might check is the support ribs themselves. They may be detaching under your weight. The ribs themselves are cored with foam, so it is the shape that is giving it strength. These ribs (well the stringeres along the hull that are manufactured the same way at least) did crack on mine. The fix is to remove the paint covering the rib clean with acetone and reglass with a strip of fg cloth to reinforce the rib, extending the repair by a couple of inches on each side of the rib. If you do note crazing in between the ribs you can sand down to bare glass , clean with acetone and attach a patch. I did this to the inside of the hull for a repair. Turning the boat upside down so that gravity is working with you, may be the easiest way to effect this repair. Its not a difficult repair but tedious. Good Luck.

[jefflw]

I inspected the ribs and do not see any cracks - they appear to be in sound shape. On the surface in the area that is soft I do not see any cracks, just fearful that if I do not reinforce I will have problems. I do have some cracks on the upper part of the bulk head, which I think I will reinforce at the same time.

So here is my question. Ive seen some posts where folks have used pvc piping. This stuff can be flexible and so would fit the curvature if i installed a couple of new ribs going port to starboard on both lower and upper part of bulkhead (between each of existing ribs). However how could I install pvc piping? Epoxy and fiberglass over it? Ive never worked with Epoxy or fiberglass before. But since the pipe would be round I could see it being difficult to work with.

Ive also seen posts where folks have used wood, carved for the curvature.

The other Idea is to just epoxy some metal plates approx 12 inches long x 1 1/2 inches wide going from one rib to the other, on both port and starboard sides. Issue there would be curvature, although at 12 inches I dont think it would be that bad. Of course this would add a bit more weight. Then could probably put fiberglass over this.

Another idea would be to just add some fiberglass under the soft spots and not worry about adding support there. Maybe that would help stiffen things up a bit.

I take it the splotchy covering I see inside the cuddy is paint, so I assume in all instances I would need to remove some of this before applying any epoxy/fiberglass.

Would one of these auto fiberglass patch kits work?

[algonquin]

I have used the standard fiberglass repair kits from auto stores with great results. Make sure it contains the glass fibers in the mix. You should be able to fix the problems without using any fiberglass cloth as long as the product has the fibers in it. Brad

[tmhansen]

I recently rebuilt my DS I. My cuddy was cracked and flexible. There was rebar supossedly reinforcing the edges of the cuddy. The ribs were made with glass over half of a cardboard tube. I removed it all with a sander on my angle grinder-(paper suit & respirator reqd). I built new deck beams by laying glass and epoxy over a shape I made of layers of rigid foam insulation. Boat was inverted. It worked great and did not add much weight.

[tmhansen]

Further thoughts on deck reinforcement. At least for the DS1 it is normal for the deck to flex under the load of a person. I suspect that the cracking you heard was because of the point load in one small area from your knee. It may be that you do not need to add anything to the deck. Just don't kneel on it or stand on the deck with high heel shoes.