The “Original Plan”

My boat: 1972 Sea Sprite - owned by me since about 1985. Garage kept by myself and previous owner. I discovered transom was rotten last year. With the age of the boat (and motor) I didn’t feel it was worth the “take the boat apart and build a new transom” solution.

The problem by the way is that there is NO SEAL whatsoever between the lower hull and the upper hull in the area of the motor. There was a piece of aluminum trim - whose only function was to hide the fact that the top of the transom was exposed to water.

The first picture is the back of the boat with the red outline showing roughly the rotten area. I’ve not dug this entirely out (and don’t plan to), but I have determined the left and right edges of the rotten area.

The second picture shows an area in blue, this is the area I plan to “excavate”.

I plan to use the CPES* on the edges and soak into the lower unexcavated area. Then I’ll use cardboard to create an outline of the hole so I can cut two layers of 3/4 plywood. Because of the shape of the hole, I can’t cut just two pieces of wood. As shown in the picture I plan to cut three pieces of wood, fitting each side (in green) in and driving a wedge (in yellow) down the center. I’ve offset the cut to the left - the other layer of 3/4 will be offset to the right. Once the CPES* is dry I plan to lay a liberal layer of epoxy along the edge of the old wood, coat all sides of each new piece - and drop it in place. Tap the wedge in, and clamp it all together. Before I tighten the clamps I’ll make sure the gaps (wood to wood, wood to fiberglass) are full of epoxy.

return to “THE NEW PLAN”

* These products are unavailable, we are selling comparable products that will perform these same tasks. Feel free to contact us if you need assistance with which products to use.