Tomcat cockpit construction? Adventures in rotten core...

john8lyons

Does anyone know any details of how the Tomcat cockpit was constructed in the 2007/2008 vintage boats? A previous owner of my boat removed the aft steering station that included a hole in the front starboard corner of the deck, likely to pass control cables and wiring. The hole in the deck was covered with a round hatch without properly sealing the edges of the hole with epoxy. It leaked and rotted out the core, of course. I won't get into why the buyer's inspector didn't find it, or ignored it, but lesson learned on my end. There's a photo of the offender in my album and here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K2tEQRPwVKMG93_Lxco5bqRTF4A8wr9-/view?usp=sharing.

I'm taking the boat into a local shop to (hopefully) have the issue addressed later this week, but both the shop owner and myself are wondering whether the rot has crept far away from that corner or if there is a longitudinal stringer that may have confined the rot to just that front corner. The difference being a smaller, affordable job (corner fix) versus tearing up the entire cockpit deck (potentially out of my price range). One bright side is that there is no flex or softness in the deck, even right around the hole where the core is goo. The fiberglass in the cockpit is quite thick.

-John

thataway · Posted: Tue May 06, 2025 8:01 pm Post subject:

There is no extra stringer under that part of the cockpit floor. I would sound out to determine how much area is affected. A moisture measurement will help. Certainly if possible I would put thickened epoxy where you take out the core. There are some other techniques which might be considered. Generally I avoid loosing the non skid pattern. There are molds which can be easily used to replicate the nonskid, but a smooth transmission is not that easy to achieve. Lets see what is found. You can use "glue" (similar to Plexis) to secure a stiff new core.

My guess is that this delamination and water intrusion is not that large an area. You can do the epoxy repair, but back in a plate and go on enjoying the boat.