Patrick — from what I can see in your photos, I wouldn’t be surprised if the battery (or a previous one) had something to do with the rot. The discoloration and deterioration of the wood could have come from acid leak or outgassing of hydrogen sulfide from a battery being overcharged.
Your best bet, if you have enough access, would be to cut back a rectangular section of the plywood until you reach “good” wood, then put in a patch out of new marine plywood and get a layer of glass over everything. That should keep the battery issue in check in the future. Fred Street -- Minneapolis S/V Oceanis (1979 C&C Landfall 38) -- on the hard in Bayfield, WI :^( > On Dec 7, 2015, at 3:00 PM, Patrick Davin via CnC-List > <cnc-list@cnc-list.com> wrote: > > So I'm doing a lot of projects lately, and was majorly bummed out to find the > wall between the engine compartment and the lower foot of the port aft > quarterberth has some significant rot. Frustrated because lately it feels > like every project I fix, I find a new one. And this will be a big one. > > Please see pictures here: > https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BxfHpwssU_6NNVBhbXpEZnhkUE0&usp=sharing > > <https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BxfHpwssU_6NNVBhbXpEZnhkUE0&usp=sharing> > > As they say, pictures are worth a thousand words. It's a 2-3 foot section of > the port engine compartment wall, abutting the storage compartments under the > port quarterberth. > > One thing I'm perplexed on is - how did this happen? There are no leaks > dripping onto this area as far as I can tell. The cockpit is above this and > it doesn't have any major penetrations on this side. And the top of the > bulkhead is solid. Normally when wood rots I expect it to start from the top, > where the leak is. > > The only clue I have is this bulkhead had two cuts / gaps in the bottom > (probably to run wires through) and that's where the rot seems to have spread > out from. So maybe the moisture got in through the exposed grain at the cut? > There is high humidity in the engine compartment due to inevitable moisture > in there. But also the rot is right behind the batteries (house #1 + > starter), which I find suspicious. Is it possible the gel cells outgassing > actually caused the damage somehow? > > From the pictures do you think this might be "dry rot"? (a particularly evil > kind of rot which apparently spreads by fungus even without an active water > leak anymore) > > If it's spreading I want to cut out the bad portion of the bulkhead and glass > in new wood asap. If it's not spreading I can put it off, or even ignore it > since it's not structural. I could even just paint over it with new > waterproof marine paint? If I have to cut it out, access will be tough - > it's in the engine space, I'll have to remove the batteries, some wiring, and > probably the exhaust lift riser, and the panel that covers the aft > quarterberth storage compartments. > > The other thing is I can't even tell what kind of wood this was originally. > It doesn't seem as strong as marine plywood or the wood used in other > bulkheads. The bad wood seems sort of grey / bluish colored - I'm not sure if > that's from the flaked off white paint or what. > > The other option is trying Git Rot injected into holes drilled into it. > http://www.boatlife.com/git-rot/ <http://www.boatlife.com/git-rot/> > > At this point mainly wondering if any of you have experience with this issue, > particularly in this area (non-structural, between engine compartment and aft > qtrberth storage compartments) or how something like this can happen (rotting > from the bottom up rather than top down)? > > -Patrick > 1984 C&C LF38 > Seattle, WA
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