Wet but solid stringers.

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

 

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

 

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

 

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