Wet but solid stringers.

[tuantom]

Hello from Chicago. My newest project is a 1967 24' Piranha deep vee (I have never seen another Piranha). I started out to replace the transom, which was delaminating; and am, as it turns out, replacing all the flooring and foam as well. The floor was replaced around 10 years ago with treated 3/4" plywood and coated with polyester resin on both sides and cloth at the seams. It seems to have soaked up water; but can't dry out. It is still solid; but HEAVY! The foam too- it may have been closed cell in 1967; but it is more like a sponge now and was saturated- and HEAVY.
Now, This gets me curious about the condition of the stringers. I drilled a 1" hole through the fiberglass encasement in several places after the foam was removed. The 2x material (8" in the back- around 14" in front) under the fiberglass is very wet; but also extremely solid in the several test locations. I couldn't identify the species of wood used - though from the little bit I saw, it seems to resemble pine. The fiberglass encasement is approximately 1/8" heavy weave cloth - and it doesn't seem to be bound to the wood stringer anymore, for I can press it in a little.
Do I just leave good enough alone? Or could I beef up the fiberglass encasement for added insurance? I don't want to get into stringer replacement if not necessary. After all, it could have been this wet for 30+ years now. Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Tom

[jimslade]

dry it out well then assess if you need to replace them.

[tuantom]

I'm going to cut open the top and get them to dry out as best they can over the next couple months. I really don't want to expand my project too much further, for I hardly have the time for what I'm doing as is. I'm thinking I can then clean and scuff the existing fiberglass encasement, and put a few more layers of medium weave cloth over them. Wouldn't this provide the structural support I need regardless if the core is rotten or not? It just seems so much easier than total replacement, and equally effective. I'm not that experienced with this stuff; but it seems logical enough.
-Tom

[jimslade]

use 3 layers of 1810 glass then even if the stringers are rotten the layers of glass now become the supports.