Drainage under the sea hood

[Sailsteve]

On my Ericson 36 RH I removed the sea hood over my compainionway sliding door. I wanted to rebed some screws and replace the weathered caulking around the edge. Once I had it off I discovered something peculiar. There seems to be no drainage for water trapped under the sea hood. This is a problem because trapped water under the hood has found its way into the screws that hold it down and that water is dripping into the main cabin and softening the balsa core in the deck. Has anyone noticed this on other Ericson models, and what have you done about it (or is this simply a design flaw)?

Steve Schwartz

 

[sokolb]

We have an E31 and encountered the same thing. We're in the process of replacing the rotted wood from the underside and re-fiberglassing. Fortunately, the headliner will hide all of our "handywork". It's turning out to be a rather large project but well worth it in the long run.

It doesn't appear to be a design flaw, but more of an installation flaw. Ours was installed with machine screws and no sealant. Over time, the vibration was enough to eat away enough fiberglass in some places so that we could just lift parts of the sea hood w/o unscrewing. We'll be replacing with fully drilled out holes and bolts.

The project is still underway for us, but I'm writing up the full steps of what we've done and plan to do. With luck, I should be able to post it in a few days.

Edit: I happened to get to this today. It's incomplete, but this is the gist of what we're doing. See project "Core Delamination Repair" at http://e31.no-ip.com/projects.aspx.

 

[Sailsteve]

Thanks ... I took a look at your E-31 site with the pictures. Redoing the headliner and soft parts of the cabin top will be my next big project ... I guess I will start in the fall because I don't want to screw up the summer sailing season. Your step by step instructions will be very helpful to me.

Steve