C-22 Cruiser with moisture in the transom

[msu1966]

Greetings, I am new to the Brats group. I am considering buying a 2002 C-22 Cruiser. I talked to the surveyor that did a partial survey for a previous prospective buyer. He was willing to share information regarding the transom. He detected using a hammer that the transom was "wet". He also said " that the condition is not uncommon for a boat of that vintage". He also said that "there is no delamination and that he is not concerned about the integrity of the transom going forward".

Has anyone experienced this condition and if so, what action did you take?

Has anyone done a restoration of their transom in a similar situation and what were the issues in doing so and the cost to restore the transom?

Much appreciated,
Ken

[thataway]

Wet transoms are relatively infrequent in C Dorys of that vintage.

There have been some failures of transoms. This is with rotten wooden cores--it looks like toothpicks inside the transom. There are several ways to repair. One is to remove the cap, cut down to where the core is exposed, and use a chain saw, or spade bit on a drill to chop up the wooden core material and suck it out with a vacuum cleaner. Then a "cast" material is mixed and poured into the core. Cap replaced and of you go.

More common is to cut the outer face off the transom, usually 2 to 3 inches inside of the outer part. Some of the C Dorys do not have core all of the way across the transom. In those cases, then the cut is just inside where the core resides. The core is replaced with marine plywood sealed with epoxy, and the transom face is glued back on with eopxy, and the joints are feathered and then laminated with polyester or epoxy resin--faired and gel coated or painted.

Cost depends if you do it or a shop does it. I have seen labor from $80 to $200 an hour recently.This is for skilled workers. There are some who will quote a job. I would expect in the range of $3,000 to $5,000 in todays market. It could easily be more, depending if other issues were found.

For DIY, about $1,000--maybe more if you don't have tools, and some odds and ends...I would figure more in AK,, than a place like Pensacola, or the Seattle Area, where we have several wholesale suppliers available in town.

[Ctarmigan]

I addressed a wet transom core on my 2004 22 Cruiser this spring. In case it's useful in seeing potential steps for Dr. Bob's first repair option (core removal and replacement with cast material), my repair log is here: http://www.c-brats.com/viewtopic.php?t=32753

Happy to answer questions if it'd be helpful.

Cheers,

Oliver

[Ctarmigan]

Oh - and Dr. Bob's estimate for DIY repair is about right. I'm in Whitehorse, which brings costs up compared to southern centres - my total cost was ~2.5k CAD (incorporating some new tools, and expensive purchase/shipping of CarbonBond compared to less remote locations).

[FrankisCaptBobo]

I really don't want to get hate mail from Thataway, a very long term poster that he is, but I have to very politely disagree with his "Wet transoms are relatively infrequent in C Dorys of that vintage." This is my 1st posting here, but I've been lurking ever since I decided that I wanted to buy a C dory 22 cruiser.

My search for my C-Dory had me all over the eastern US in May and June of '25 and I had a chance to look at 4 boats ranging from 1999-2006, before buying the last boat that I looked at which was the 1999. My requirements were simple, I was looking for a hull that was free of any moisture, predominantly near the stern of the boat where the older boats had the fuel tanks secured using brackets that were screwed through glass and into the 1" balsa hull core or the newer boats had panels to hide the fuel tanks screwed into the same area of the deck and into the core. The transoms were a given, I figured I would find varying degrees of wetness on all of the boats (very common on any model outboard boat over 20 years old) that I looked at so that work was a given. The transoms on these boats are small and it won't take me over a week from start to spraying paint to fix (yes I've been doing this for most of my life both professionally as well as for myself.) so I wasn't focused on them.

I did check all of the transoms though and yes, all including mine were wet in areas and had varying degrees de-lamination. What my boat had, I don't know why, was a totally dry hull core, hence I bought the boat even though the boat, overall, required way more work to put her into like new condition than did the newer models. (thin gel coat, 6 circuits switch panel made up of drill spun twisted un-tinned 16g wire pairs with not a fuse or breaker to be found anywhere. Mild steel angle bracket holding the furniture in place and best of all, the doorway bilge pump's box made out of plywood... all easy fixes).

Now, having said that, I want to reassure people that only 1 of the boats had enough moisture in the hull to really concern me and and that boat was in CT. Not only that, but it had been recently surveyed for a woman that walked because she wasn't sure that she wanted to deal with the wet transom. The owner gave me the surveyors # and when I called the surveyor, he was quite personable and more than willing to talk about the boat. He told me that yeah the transom was wet but it didn't worry him as it wasn't as wet as some that he had seen. When I asked him about the hull he said that it was solid and the boat was a great little boat and I should buy it! I then told him that I had just surveyed the boat and the balsa core at the rear of the boat had very high levels of moisture he mumbled something like Oh, I thought that it was solid fiberglass...

Please, this is not a huge deal and it comes with the territory for a very light, stiff, fuel efficient cored hull. And in all cases the wet areas were very contained and very easy to access. It would not have been hard to replace the 2- smaller than ~1'-2'x3' wet/damp core areas and have a perfect hull again. There's nothing in your way to cut out the inner skin, R&R the core etc, but I didn't want to get into that at this point in my life.

Enjoy, Frank
1999 C-Dory
No name yet
Great design and I LOVE the boat!

[thataway]

Frank, welcome aboard. No problem with your "disagreement', which may not really be that. I am sure you recognize that any moisture reading near a metal object is not valid. I can speak only to the 5 C Dorys I have owned--two of which I have done more "extensive" transom work on--the 2003 25 had no significant rot or wet plywood. The 2007, there was a crush damage of the splash well where the upper engine bolts were. I had not observed that, but he did after several trips in our area. He left the boat at my home, and I dug into the transom---totally dry, pulled the motor and overbored the bolt holes (dry), and epoxy filled, then refit the bolts. I filled the space between the spash well rear wall and front wall of the transom with solid glass laminate, and redrilled the holes, put in a larger plate to carry the load.

I address the issue from the number of boats having transom failure. I often get information from owners who never post on the web site for fear it will devalue their boat. The number of reports are extremely rare of a transom failure, which is not reported on the site. Now, now many properly sound out, or take sample cores, or even do a good moisture meter analysis?is most likely a very low number. In my experience marine surveyors (and there are plenty of bad ones, as well as good ones) have reported wet transoms. Did they adequately survey the boat like you and I would--most likely not.

I have replaced those iron angle irons with fiberglass tabs, after filling in the screw holes. No moisture found in the floor of my boats..

Not sure what your point is is about the box inside the door being made of plywood, That is true of all of the plywood interior boats. Most of the interior furniture of boats prior to the 2007 era is made of plywood coated on both sides with a Melamine like substance. There again, the plywood should be glassed to the hull on the inside of the box. Also check the tabbing of the aft cabin bulkhead to the floor on both sides of the bulkhead and up into the sides of the hull.

You are correct about the area near the stern, and screws into the core--some boats had those cleats glued in place and then glassed over. If there is wet core, then that should be replaced. In my boat which had this, The amount of wet core was in the immediate area of the screws, That was drilled out, and then the void filled with thickened epoxy--the strips were glued back in place and glassed over.

Thank you for your comments.

[FrankisCaptBobo]

Hi Thataway,

Glad I didn't offend. I never want to offend, but I try to tell it straight and some find that offensive...

"Not sure what your point is is about the box inside the door being made of plywood, That is true of all of the plywood interior boats"

Sorry, I was talking about the little plywood step just inside the door on the 99 that houses the bilge pump and has grated holes on the cockpit side door bulkhead to allow water to flow into the cabin (assume that's the lowest point when the boat is at rest in the water?) and be pumped out by the cabin bilge pump.

So the bottom edge of the ~5" high ply (which has another piece of ply hinged on top making it look like a small step) has a raw bottom edge against the floor which is supposed to keep the water in the bilge pump area and out of the cabin, but that edge was never sealed on the bottom or caulked to the floor. So of course the ply has wicked water for 25 years and
because the bottom was never caulked whatever water ran back towards the pilothouse went under the door and under the plywood edge and sloshed around on the interior floor of the cabin... You can imagine that I had to spray down the complete interior with bleach before doing anything else...

Anyhow, an easy fix with a couple pieces of fiberglass, a little sanding, and some epoxy filets. I'm just astounded that people put up with that for 25 years! Even a simple bead of household caulk would have been a huge improvement. Sorry for the rant, but I get a bit incredulous over what I consider just plain stupid design.

Enjoy,

Frank

[thataway]

[FrankisCaptBobo]

Well, after leaving my boat at Radcliff Marine in Belhaven, NC for a month, waiting for them to look at my engine which wasn't firing on all cylinders, I got tired of waiting and picked up my boat. I then drove it to a Honda mechanic that had been recommended to me on the offhand chance that he might want to look at it and i lucked out. He had just finished another boat and said that he'd look at it and give me a call that afternoon. The diagnosis was what I was expecting having talked to the former owner who hadn't run the engine in over a year and hadn't burned the fuel out the last time he ran it. The high pressure fuel pump needed replacing and the whole fuel system needed to be taken apart, cleaned, parts ordered and reassembled etc.

Anyhow, that was a week ago and so now the engine is fixed and "purrs like a kitten" and he removed the engine for me so that I could take care of replacing the transom. I picked the boat up Tuesday afternoon and to it to my shop.

Yesterday (Wed) morning we removed the fuel tanks and wiring under the splash well so that I could take care of what everyone here was saying was thin laminate consisting of one or two sheets of mat under the splash well. When I was grinding the area down, it just didn't feel right for a thin mat covering, so after I had cleaned the area and was ready to start laying my glass up i first measured the thickness. I found that at least on this 1999 hull the 1/4" thickness of the glass went from the top of the engine cutout all the way down to the hull and was well tabbed to the underside of the splash well as well as the floor. If I had checked this before grinding and my helper cutting all of the glass and peel ply, I probably wouldn't have worried about it, but since hadn't checked (my bad!) I continued and laminated up two sheets of 1708, one sheet of mat and since I was using laminating epoxy, covered it with peel ply. So I now have about 3/8" of glass under the splash well. No big deal as I lean towards overkill anyway.

Before laminating the inside, I drilled a few small holes at the edge of the coring which is easy to see from the inside and today I'll connect those dots and cut out the glass and core from the back of the transom. I'll make a template and cut my 1" Coosa board, but probably won't laminate it into the transom today because it's a short day due to social obligations. That means that I'll have the transom finished up tomorrow and it'll be ready for paint. Oh, I'll have a 1"X2'X8' sheet of Coosa board left over (more than enough to do another transom) if anyone here wants it. Shipping would be outrageous so this would be for someone heading through Eastern NC that could pick it up. My cost for that 1/2 sheet is $202 and I'd extend that to anyone here. I'll get some pictures today to post here.

[FrankisCaptBobo]

Sorry for the wait. My friend that was helping, because he's one of the few people that I know that has a bit of epoxy experience, just left today so instead of working on my boat or his boat or socializing with mutual friends, I finally have time to upgrade this post and share a few (very few... sorry) pictures of the transom replacement. I was going to video and take pictures of the process, but working with my resin of choice, epoxy, during the heat of the summer takes all of my concentration and the job always has priority over documentation...

Anyhow, I got the inside of the transom done last Wednesday, as I posted and then cut out the core and the outside skin Thursday morning using a chain saw as described by others here. It was by far the easiest way to remove the end grain balsa coring to release the outside fiberglass skin. I then made a construction paper template which I prefer over hot melt glue and trim sticks if poss. I cut the Coosa board and we glued it in place using a paste of epoxy, a little colloidal silica and a lot of microfiber. I found that using 2x4's on either side of the engine mount holes with 3/8" shims on the outside edges of the Coosa board kept the board bent flush to the inside transom fiberglass without squeezing too much of the epoxy paste out.

Since I was using 209 extra slow hardener, I decided to leave the Cossa board clamped on Friday to give it an extra day of curing.

On Saturday I removed the clamps, ground the inside of the outer fiberglass skin and applied more of the epoxy paste to both the fiberglass and Coosa using a knotched trowel vertically (just as we did with the inside skin and Coosa board when initially adhering the board) and put our 2x4 clamps back into place with the associated shims and a few long screws with washers along the bottom in the cut gap between the hulls outer skin and the bottom of the transom fiberglass. Everything lined up perfectly flush and the transom has that nice gentle (~3/8")curve going from one side to the other just as it did before we started.

I know that I cut the transom much lower than most, but I really wanted to be able to see, inspect and potentially repair the coring that makes up the hull if I found that water had drained down the transom and been absorbed by the hull coring. I lucked out and the hull coring was dry and looked like new! I did cut it back so that the Cossa board could rest in the epoxy paste near the bottom and the epoxy would be a thick barrier between the back of the Coosa and the hulls balsa core.

Again, I let the transom cure an extra day before removing my clamps and screws, grinding out all of the exterior cuts and surrounding glass as well as about 8" of the underside of the hull. We then laid up 2 layers of 1208 over the cuts with the lower fiberglass pieces wrapping the rounded corner of the bottom and extending both 4" up the transom as well as 4" forward on the bottom of the hull. And again, just like the inside of the transom when we were glassing that, we could feel the resin starting to warm up as we were finishing up smoothing out the peel ply. Hence needing 2 hustling people for all of the epoxy work at this time of year.

What I found, as far as the coring in my transom... First I drilled 2 holes from either side of the top (where the black plastic cap was removed) to one of my lower engine mounting holes and slowly drained about 1/2 a quart of water out. A lot of the top coring was no longer attached to
the fiberglass on either side and was wet as a sponge. Lower, near the middle of the transom, around the lower engine mounting holes, the balsa didn't look too bad but had released from one side or the other in several areas and was the reason for the delaminated thud when sounding out the transom during the survey. The lower third of the transom was in pretty good shape and moisture content decreased moving downward. Hence, I agree with folks that the major cause of transom issues with these boats was the way the top edge of the transom was "finished" by the builder.

I guess I should have first checked to see how to insert an image but I didn't... when I figure it out I'll comment below.

[thataway]

Thank you for the detailed post.

How thick was the Coosa board?

Why did you use 1208 rather than 1708 rather than 1708?

How did you finish off the top of the transom, before reapplying the plastic cap?

How did you adhere the plastic cap to the top of the transom?

Did your physical findings correlate with the moisture meter analysis of the transom core?

Thanks.

[FrankisCaptBobo]

Hi Thataway,

1. The Coosa was BW26lbs/square foot at a 1" thickness. I could have gotten away with the BW20 as I'm sure that it's stronger than 1" balsa, but I lean towards overkill...

2. When everything is bonded with epoxy and microfiber I have never seen a bonding failure or a crack reappear. Having said that I still follow fiberglass conventions. With the transom outside glass only being .25" thick, I didn't want to grind away enough glass to put in 2 layers of the heavier 1708, hence I used the 2 layers of 1208. Additionally, having the glass do a rounded 90 degree bend without any air where it's folded from the bottom of the transom to the bottom of the hull would have been much harder to achieve with the 1708. With the 1208 we got it tight to the original glass and have no air bubbles whatsoever!

3. I have not reapplied the black cap yet as I will paint the transom before putting the cap on. But, what I did was cut an inch off of the top of my template and Coosa so that I had ~1" height of empty space between the front and rear fiberglass panels and above the Cossa.

4. I filled in the above space with epoxy and microfiber paste. After painting the transom I'll probably us West System Flex epoxy to glue the black trim in place since it adheres to plastics well, including formerly unglueable as ABS.

5. That's a subjective question, but I would say that the moisture content was as spot on for moisture meter as you can get allowing for all of the variables. Low to no moisture was exactly that, medium to fairly high also corresponded and off the chart had liquid water flowing around the wood.

As far as the appearance of the balsa, it looked way better than what I was expecting and none of it was total mush, but there was more delamination on one or both sides than I was able to detect sounding with my phenolic hammer. I did do the test mentioned here, of putting weight on the elevated motor and I really didn't see much deflection.

Could it have been OK for another year or two... absolutely!... maybe!... you won't know until it fails... but since I take all of my boats offshore it would worry me way too much because chances are that that if I had a catastrophic failure it would be during the most extreme weather (yes, I know... shouldn't have this boat out in extreme weather, but then, crap happens).

Am I glad that I did it? Yup! And since the fuel fills and rod holders are off I'll route out the coring around those holes and fill the voids with the same epoxy paste and work my way forward before doing my complete rewire.

[pcg]

I am in the process of replacing some rotten core at the top of the transom on my 1999 C-Dory cruiser. I’ll post photos and details at a later date, but wanted to mention that I’m going a different route for repair after consulting with Andy Miller of Boatworks today. My moisture meter showed no moisture in the transom, but the transom was missing a cap and there were visible old repairs along the top edge that worried me. I decided to grind off the top edge to investigate what was underneath and, sure enough, I found some dry rotten core varying in depth from a quarter inch to an inch and a half in one spot around an upper motor mount hole. I also drilled some exploratory half-inch holes lower on the transom to double check that that core was solid there, and it was. I used a router to remove the top 2 inches of core, most of which was sound, and I’m now replacing it with new balsacore bedded in thickened epoxy. I’ve sanded both sides of the top of the transom down four inches on each side, taking away almost all of the outside fiberglass at the top edges and tapering down to nothing removed at 4 inches below. I’m going to lay a couple strips of 1708 across the top and then three staggered layers of 1708 overlapping the top and both edges down to where I stopped sanding on both sides. In my case, there was no wet core, but my boat has been indoors for five years. Also, I was fortunate in that the damage was confined to just under where the cap used to be, along the top edge.

[FrankisCaptBobo]

Hi all,

Finally got around to posting pictures. Remember, you get 10 people doing this and you'll see 10 different processes... I'm very happy with this and think that it's bomb proof and good for the life of the boat and then some. There was very little sanding to do and very little fairing.

I've now moved on to removing all of the perimeter core around all fittings and and replacing that with more epoxy and microfiber. I found this combination when cured for a week or more then drilled for the solid thickness of the screw minus the threads, holds fasteners exceedingly well and of course protects the rest of the core. Once done with that I'll replace all of the furniture mild steel angle brackets with stainless and finally rewire and fuse. Wow, then I'll finally get to use the boat!!!!