Foredeck Delaminating

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I have an old and fairly beaten up Mark 2 Wayfarer.

The foredeck creaks when putting pressure on it and I have been informed that this is due to the deck delaminating from the balsa wood layer.

My question is:
Is it possible to improve the strength and prevent further delamination by feeding epoxy resin into the balsa wood layer. I would propose to do this my drilling some holes into the top glassfibre layer and injecting slow setting epoxy resin. I visualize that my drilling a hole say about every foot of so, it would be possible to feed the epoxy in until it appears at the next hole.

This would leave the foredeck with a series of holes in it, but I would fill these and then paint the foredeck. On which matter, does anyone know what the colour code is for the Wayfarer blue colour?

This repair would obviously be a bit of a cludge, but the boat itself is not in 100% condition, with various cracks etc having been repaired fairly roughly. If this would keep the boat going for another 10 years or so, I would be quite happy.

Thanks in advance for any advice given!

[Anonymous]

Err, I don’t think you will find balsa core in a Mk2 Wayfarer, you have been misinformed. They were not built like yachts with composite construction.

As far as I know, all GRP Mk2s, including the foredeck were made using about two or three layers of chopped strand mat.  Depending on who built yours there maybe some stiffeners in strategic places and pieces of ply for any fittings to attach to.  If there are stiffeners in there they will likely be pieces of wood former over which additional additional glass and resin was laid up to form a tunnel/ top-hat shape for stiffness.  I don’t think my old Moore’s built Mk 2 had any stiffeners.

Over time and with a bit of abuse the GRP gets kinda flabby and could benefit from the addition of some structure to support a bit of weight on the deck.

Don’t drill from the outside! If you want to add stiffening then I suggest you turn the boat upside down on some saw horses or similar, make sure that it is not being distorted under its own weight, then clean, abrade and wipe the underside of the foredeck with acetone. Get some 1cm thick polyurethane foam ( you can buy small amounts from CFS), cut strips about 3cm wide, round over two edges and stick them to the underside of the deck using epoxy then lay up glass cloth (not chopped strand) over the foam, in say 15cm wide strips.  Fix a brush on a stick to get up to the bows.

Join a club and talk to someone who knows more about grp Wayfarers. Where are you?

I suggest you have a look at and join the Facebook Wayfarer Group, there are loads of people on there who can advise you.

[Les Burns]

Hi,

I found this some time ago:

http://www.wayfarer-international.org/wit/maint.repair.ref/restoration/W4677_restoration.pdf

I thought my Moore’s built mk2 (7301) could be the same but it actually has a foam core. The outer skin is thin and the inner is relatively thick.

[Mike Summers]

That’s my reply up there saying there isn’t any balsa core in Wayfarer foredecks.  Looks like I wuz wrong!

Could any FRP boat owners confirm that uk built Wayfarers had cored decks as well as hulls? Asking for a friend….. sort of.

[Author]

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