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Here is what removing the top laminate revealed after I cut it off with a little circular saw. There is a rotten area right in the center caused by several leaking pop rivets right at the aft corner of the seat box. What I had suspected is that the leak migrated towards the center of the boat. You can see that balsa does not rot uniformly, meaning that some pieces in the parquet have rotted while others simply discolored. The dark rectangle on the right side of the cutout was completely saturated and rotten while some of the surrounding wood was almost dry. To the left of the cutout is another dark hole that was bad. I will have to expand the cutout to include that area.
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When I drilled out the deck fill for the gas tank, the moisture level (in the deck) was at 37% because of leaking bow pulpit and cleats. Five days later when I rechecked the moisture in the plug, it was down to 18%. But I know this one. It's only down to 18 on the surface (or as deep as my sensor pins penetrate.)
Here is the scariest part. This is looking towards the center of the boat once all of the balsa was cleaned out of the initial section. Even though the wood is showing less damage overall, there is a spot of wet rotted wood that is basically forming a tunnel against the outer skin of the hull. Water in this area can be pumped into other areas by the hull pounding. I found the adhesion to be very good, so I'm hoping this doesn't go far. But the cutout has to be expanded until I find the end of the damage. I made quite a few cuts, expanding by about an inch at a time, which is the amount that my vibrating saw could easily remove.
Using the cut off tool shown in the prior picture, the rotten balsa was removed so that I could see where I should concentrate my next expansion of the opening. This also shows why the rotten core wasn't revealed when I surveyed the boat. The upper area of this wood is good in many places. The rot is patchy and does not reveal itself readily when using the "bonk with a hammer" test. The resin is drawn up into the kerfs in the balsa by capillary action, forming a resin lattice that helps masks a rotten core. Much of this area was only wet/rotten on the bottom.
Here is what removing the top laminate revealed after I cut it off with a little circular saw. There is a rotten area right in the center caused by several leaking pop rivets right at the aft corner of the seat box. What I had suspected is that the leak migrated towards the center of the boat. You can see that balsa does not rot uniformly, meaning that some pieces in the parquet have rotted while others simply discolored. The dark rectangle on the right side of the cutout was completely saturated and rotten while some of the surrounding wood was almost dry. To the left of the cutout is another dark hole that was bad. I will have to expand the cutout to include that area.
Here is the major damage. This is too big of an area to fix by just cleaning out the holes. I can get an idea of the area based on the pattern of the "black holes." The second hole from the left (against the chine) is also black, and there was another single bad one on the starboard side. One good thing, since I had the seat boxes and V berth posts out, I put in a permanent 23 gallon gas tank (visible under the berth). I'll start another album for that.
Here are the homemade clean out tools. Bent nails. I start with the smallest bend in a drill that has a clutch and work my way up, if needed. When I hit solid wood, the clutch slips or the nail bends. I go on a little further to make sure that I have gotten all the rotten wood. This does not mean that I have come to dry wood!
This is a good picture of the most extensive damage. The dark holes on the port side indicate rotten wood where the seat box pop rivets leaked the most. I have left the swarf from the drilled out rivet holes on the starboard helm seat. You can see by the color of the swarf that the wood is good and gets better towards the bow. The V berth support posts were also removed (both good, but need reinforcement because of my new permanent gas tank).
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Here is what removing the top laminate revealed after I cut it off with a little circular saw. There is a rotten area right in the center caused by several leaking pop rivets right at the aft corner of the seat box. What I had suspected is that the leak migrated towards the center of the boat. You can see that balsa does not rot uniformly, meaning that some pieces in the parquet have rotted while others simply discolored. The dark rectangle on the right side of the cutout was completely saturated and rotten while some of the surrounding wood was almost dry. To the left of the cutout is another dark hole that was bad. I will have to expand the cutout to include that area.

Here is what removing the top laminate revealed after I cut it off with a little circular saw. There is a rotten area right in the center caused by several leaking pop rivets right at the aft corner of the seat box. What I had suspected is that the leak migrated towards the center of the boat. You can see that balsa does not rot uniformly, meaning that some pieces in the parquet have rotted while others simply discolored. The dark rectangle on the right side of the cutout was completely saturated and rotten while some of the surrounding wood was almost dry. To the left of the cutout is another dark hole that was bad. I will have to expand the cutout to include that area.
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Balsa Core Issues
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On the original setup, the fuel filter was between the tanks and screwed to the deck. It's now hung temporarily from an outboard bolt (above the bilge pump) and exploratory holes have been drilled to find out the condition of the balsa core where it has been breached to install hold-downs for the various gear.
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