Coronado 15 Repair Help

That is a seal for the centerboard slot.
The centerboard is pushed down thru the seal, spreading each side of the seal.
This smooths out the flow of water past the slot.

Its a standard designed in feature.
You can get a replacement at the Catalina Direct website.

 

That's the centerboard slot gasket. It will have to be replaced so you might as well remove the screws (save them) and toss that old gasket material. Yes, it's supposed to be there.

I wouldn't cut into a good deck either. The deck I removed had broke free of the hull, so that was a different situation. See what you can accomplish through the hatch. It might be slow going but ultimately doable. Post some pictures of your work on the compression post.

 

After looking carefully at that gasket, it does look like someone tried to replace the original with something home brewed. A factory gasket doesn't have a large overlap and the correct screw is not round-head with washers.

I have a few pictures of the gaskets and their batten strips (for lack of a better word.) These are the old plastic battens that were in bad shape so I replaced them with aluminum.


I picked up this aluminum and the counter sink bit at Home Depot. The old battens were used as a pattern to drill the holes. The B stands for board and the F stands for forward.


The rubber gasket material on my boat was in ok condition so it was reused. Here you can see that the edges just barely overlap along the middle.


And this is, generally speaking, a close approximation of how the gasket should look. Each screw hole is the source of a potential leak. I filled them with a small amount of epoxy, coated the threads and installed the screws (let the epoxy cure and repeat.) By the way, you can order a new gasket and battens on-line.


Do you have the boat inside?

 

Was just zooming in on those pictures you posted. Someone used a bunch of caulking on that gasket (maybe silicone.) You'll want to remove all that stuff with a putty knife and maybe some sand paper.

 

Now that it's flipped, you might consider filling some scratches, gouges and chips. It will move through the water much better.


When you get the flotation blocks out of your hull, they can be used for supports. Here you can see one block under the transom and one under the bow.

 

I know you live in a colder climate. I picked up a couple of 500w halogen work lamps at HF for 5 bucks apiece. They sell the same lamps at Home Depot for super cheap. In the image above you can see a lamp under the boat. It's for heat. Epoxy doesn't like to get cold.

Hurricane Irma just blew over and I'm at the sailing club charging the laptop and phone. Thought I'd post a few pictures.

Here's a halogen adding heat the the boat. That's a coat of primer on the bottom. The hull naturally traps the heat as it rises.



A halogen is very hot. For less heat a regular incandescent will work


Smaller projects can go inside a black plastic bag and left in the sun. If I'm remembering correctly, this bag reached 140 degrees.


Good luck multivariablespace. Give us an update when you get the chance.

 

Good pictures, your work looks really nice. I have a much greater respect for your fiberglassing skills now that I've tried it.

I installed a 4" cedar board at the bottom of the boat, then cut two fir boards to brace between it and the underside of the deck to support the mast. The Fir goes back to the centerboard slot. I put a triangular strip as a fillet on each side of the bracing board and then put a few layers of glass over it. It's heavy and ugly, but I think it will function.

The glassing did not go well. The cloth kept sagging and the epoxy drained down the boat. Boat is upside down, so the sagging was towards the underside of the deck. The thickened epoxy in a tube you recommended worked really well. I tried to make my own with phenolic and glass microbead filler materials, but it ran more then I wanted. Maybe I needed more filler, I'm not sure. Worst part was the weight of the fir boards sagged the deck about 1/4" and I ended up needing to shim the fir boards to get good contact at the front. I'm not too stressed because I got the mast support mounting screws to go all the way down into the Fir boards, so even though the glassing at the top is REALLY ugly, I think if I can do a better job glassing the bottom it will be okay. Plus, while the glassing is pretty bad, it sill has like three layers of glass and lots of epoxy holding it on each side, and two layers on the back securing the fir boards to the centerboard slot. I plan to fill the cavity between the boards with spray foam, and then seal it up when I flip the boat over.

I tore off the old centerboard gasket, definitely kind of a hack. the slot is full of holes. I'll fill the un-needed holes up with epoxy once I get the caulking cleaned off and then redo it. I ordered the catalina gasket just to make things easy. Once I get the gasket on I'll flip it over and work on better glassing the bottom of the mast support once it is down (I tried glassing in "celing" mode with the boat upside down, but that was just a big mess).

When working on the mast support I noticed the fiberglass over the wood support panels on the bottom of the hull are crumbing. Also noticed a few spots I think the only think keeping the water out was a thin layer of paint (really light spots on the hull showing light in marking previous repairs). Kind of a tough call how far to keep rebuilding the boat. I feel like to get into it too much further I need to split the boat apart just to get access, but that's probably more of a project then I want to do.

Good to see your doing okay after the Hurricane!

 

Looks good. It's great to see that you're stepping to the plate and taking a swing. I have a few suggestions and a few questions but that can wait.

I thought that maybe you decided not to work on this hull. Those update pictures are making my day. Love me some C15 repairs; it never gets old.

 

This looks great. I’m in the same process with the mast support, replacing the centerboard gasket, and installing new wood on the hull’s inside from the bow to the centerboard trunk. Then, swear to god, I’m calling it good. Haha

 

Wow, this all looks so familiar. Looks like I've missed quite a bit the last few months. Keep up the good work!

 

Progress?

 

Flipped it right side up and have been working to get all the wood used in the mast step support fiberglassed so it won't rot. Whoever owned it before used JB weld over foam to afix the bulkhead and it's been slow going to get it all cleaned out. It's been pretty smokey to work outside for a while and I'm starting to make progress again as the air clears out a bit.

 

JB Weld over foam? That's a new one. I'd give them props for trying. Post a picture of that stuff if you get a second.

You should just pull that bulkhead out. It's not worth saving.

 

Take out those bolts with the washers, grab the original bulkhead at the bottom (with a pair of work gloves) and tear the whole mess out of the hull.

 

I made a rudder out of home depot oak. It's the wrong kind of oak I was reading though (red oak), so I coated it with a thin layer of fiberglass cloth. Where the cloth folded over the edge I need to sand down to open up the bubbles and fill with epoxy, glassing curves is still a bit tricky. Do you think one layer of fiberglass cloth (I used a fairly light cloth) is okay or do you think two layers is needed? The cloth was a bit oversize for one side of the rudder, so the edges really have two layers already.