@mattL wrote:
As it is nice a quiet on here a hopefully simple question.
Do anyone have any advice on repairing and strengthing the cracks that appear in the wood on the side decks?
I am re-decking 1162 at the moment. When I removed the side decks I was very surprised to find that the large piece of wood underneath the rowlocks was split in two and the inner rail was also coming away from the knees. If you have similar a problem this would allow the deck to flex more but even so I wouldn’t expect the ply to split. I also noticed that some of my ply looked ok from the outside but once removed de-lamination was taking place. I would suggest epoxying a support piece under the deck making sure that the crack was more than covered. You will need to get through the existing varnish and roughen the ply where your repair support piece is to go. If you don’t you will not get good adhesion. I say this from experience of repairing a badly done repair. Has anyone suggested renewing the side decks?
As an aside on plywood I was going to use Brunzeal to re-deck my boat but my local boat builder said to use Robbins in Bristol. Their product is very good and also has a 25 year guarantee. I believe that Brunzeal recently reduced the length of the guarantee on their ply.