Avalanche
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Oct 2, 2013
- Messages
- 31
- Location
- USA
- Vessel Name
- M/V Infinity
- Vessel Make
- Universal Litton 36
Interested to hear a few different thoughts and ideas on deck repair options. I have a Universal Litton 36' Taiwanese trawler. Much of it has been redone over the years and is good shape.
The decks not so much. The previous owner pulled the teak and "fixed them" but I'm thinking they basically pulled teak, filled holes with epoxy, maybe rolled a coat of epoxy then painted it with Durabak. I ended up completely rebuilding the main cabin/flybridge deck last year and glassed up a couple layers on the forward cabin deck. The rear cabin deck does not currently leak and I think I will eventually add a few layers of glass to that and re-paint.
The big problem is the walk-around deck. A couple soft spots and some are wet underneath. Overall this boat is quite nice, motor is solid, new fuel tanks, I've done a ton of rewiring, etc.. So I don't want to do some kind of bad idea fix to these walk-arounds. BUT it's in Valdez Alaska, we live 360 miles away, and nice weather days where I have time to go work on it don't always line up. It seems as though taking it to a yard isn't a financially viable option. So whatever it is, it is going to be a DIY project like the roof and forward cabin I did.
Any recommendations for ways to go about it? Say I could set aside a week to work on it. Trying to dry and encapsulate the wet spots with vacuum pump and epoxy probably would take a long time? I'm kinda inclined to grind off the Durabak deck paint (a miserable slow process in itself) and add several layers of E-glass and matting to hopefully make it pretty solid (perhaps with some grids of holes drilled through the old fiberglass in the soft spots to try to get some resin into the ply, then keep at trying to ventilate and dry the deck ply from below. The leaky soft spots don't seem to be too soft or large (yet) so I'm hoping that could work without cutting up the decks and/or months of work to do.
(For reference, I tore out the main ceiling down to the beams, replaced two layers of 3/4" ply, faired and glassed in about one week, mostly solo... Still need to paint it - it's epoxy not Polyester)
The decks not so much. The previous owner pulled the teak and "fixed them" but I'm thinking they basically pulled teak, filled holes with epoxy, maybe rolled a coat of epoxy then painted it with Durabak. I ended up completely rebuilding the main cabin/flybridge deck last year and glassed up a couple layers on the forward cabin deck. The rear cabin deck does not currently leak and I think I will eventually add a few layers of glass to that and re-paint.
The big problem is the walk-around deck. A couple soft spots and some are wet underneath. Overall this boat is quite nice, motor is solid, new fuel tanks, I've done a ton of rewiring, etc.. So I don't want to do some kind of bad idea fix to these walk-arounds. BUT it's in Valdez Alaska, we live 360 miles away, and nice weather days where I have time to go work on it don't always line up. It seems as though taking it to a yard isn't a financially viable option. So whatever it is, it is going to be a DIY project like the roof and forward cabin I did.
Any recommendations for ways to go about it? Say I could set aside a week to work on it. Trying to dry and encapsulate the wet spots with vacuum pump and epoxy probably would take a long time? I'm kinda inclined to grind off the Durabak deck paint (a miserable slow process in itself) and add several layers of E-glass and matting to hopefully make it pretty solid (perhaps with some grids of holes drilled through the old fiberglass in the soft spots to try to get some resin into the ply, then keep at trying to ventilate and dry the deck ply from below. The leaky soft spots don't seem to be too soft or large (yet) so I'm hoping that could work without cutting up the decks and/or months of work to do.
(For reference, I tore out the main ceiling down to the beams, replaced two layers of 3/4" ply, faired and glassed in about one week, mostly solo... Still need to paint it - it's epoxy not Polyester)