Hello CnC list, I purchased The Office a couple years ago and was told by my surveyor that all the mast step needed was a 3/8” piece of fiberglass added to raise it up to make the flooring match. He didn’t feel the 3/8” depression was a structural problem.
Of course my first year on the hard the mast step was looked at and all others insisted it needed a total rebuild. My first estimate was 8K. I put this off a season and then found someone who did it for 6K. I am happy I didn’t try to do it myself, I hate creating in fiberglass and epoxy, and structurally this was way beyond my skill set. When doing the work Joe, my fiberglass guy, noticed that there is a void in front of the mast step and it was filled with very old stinking water. Though I leaned toward filling it in, I didn’t see how this was ever intended to be part of the bilge system, instead, Joe added a PVC pipe, about 1” in diameter, in the center of the mast step to allow for this forward area to drain. Splash the boat and I start to notice my bilge is working really hard. After a race my crew noticed the boat was sinking, add a newly broken wire on my bilge pump, I finally studied the situation and found a constant flow of water from the tube that was added to mast step. After discussion with Joe we realized that a small crack that I thought I saw, then decided was nothing, must have been in play. I pulled the boat out that week and what looked like a tiny tiny crack before was now a good sized rip in the hull. This is at the forward corner, just before, and at, where the hull curves down to form the fin that the keel attaches too. Obviously the void in front of the mast step was still filling up and now draining through the new tube we added. If he didn’t add this tube it would have filled up and we would have not even noticed, as before. And obviously, this is why the mast step was rotted - the water that was being carried just forward of the mast step, and it would have rotted again. In making the second repair, Joe said he found an old sub-par repair, with foam, etc. He cleaned out the old repair, ground it down and built up the fiber glass layers. Put on some barrier coat, I added some ablative and The Office is in the water again. I was lucky this didn’t kill a month of the season. Now I have to say I am still suspicious, why did this crack appear after rebuilding my mast step? My theory is that the heat from setting the epoxy did something to the old repair, though on the other hand, the fact that this area was filled with water would have you think it was never done right at all and was in play even if not very visible. I didn’t notice it before. My surveyor didn’t see it, I doubt the previous owner was aware of it. Here is my question. Are people filling in this area in front of the mast step? It seems to me to serve no purpose. The forward bilge seems to run over this spot, and if water does get in there, as per the original design there’s no way for it to get out. Sounds dumb to me. And filled in it seems it would add something to the structure. Of course I’m not going back and doing this now. Second question, it seems a rip in this area of the boat would indicate someone had a hard hit at some point. Should I be concerned? I am not seeing other issues. Matthew Schlanger The Office 1983 C&C 35 mk3 Nyack NY _______________________________________________ Thanks everyone for supporting this list with your contributions. Each and every one is greatly appreciated. If you want to support the list - use PayPal to send contribution -- https://www.paypal.me/stumurray
