Falling Apart?

[jac]

About a year ago we bought a Gib Sea 84. Survey done by a respectable surveyor who gave her a cleanish bill of health.

Just been to the boat today to do some work and we've noticed the main bulkhead seperating the Forecabin from the Saloon seems to be coming loose. The wood basically seems to have come loose from the glassfibre that was bonding it to the cabin roof and there is a gap approximately 2cm wide on the port side between the top of the bulkhead and the cabin roof.

The gap tapers off to nothing over about a foot and the bulkhead seems firmly fixed everywhere else. There is no external damage or cracking that I can see.

Has anyone got any idea what may have caused it? How serious it really is? How easy it is to fix it. Should the surveyor have picked it up if it was structural?

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[snowleopard]

glassfibre doesn't bond reliably to plywood and is always prone to separation. the problem can be rectified by grinding away the overlapping strip of bonding glass and replacing with glass/epoxy. as it is such a common problem the surveyor should have checked it. fortunately it's cheap to fix (but messy)

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[tom52]

Causes ?

If the boat is out of the water then the way it is supported will deform the shape compared the shape it takes up when supported by the water.
It is not unusual for example to be unable to close cabin doors when a boat is propped up ashore.
Distortion whilst ashore or whilst being lifted out may have caused the seperation or merely made visible the lack of attachment that already existed.

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[tillergirl]

I agree with Tom52. You have a good chance it will go back into shape when you relaunch, although I heard of one with the yard I'm with that never did. Years and years ago, the advice always was to separate the shaft coupling because of this distortions on lifting.

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[Jacket]

In which case, should you wait till the boats back in the water before carrying out a repair? If you don't, you'll be fixing the distortion in place.

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[30boat]

If you want to avoid working wih resin,grinders etc,you can drill through the bulkhead and the fiberglass it was attached to and bolt them together at small intervals.This is at least as strong as epoxy and glass and much less work.Use large washers to spread the load and avoid cracking.

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[jac]

Thanks for all the replys. My guess was distortion due to lifting, being propped up ashore so its good to know most other people agree with me. I'd been thinking about just glassing back in place but thinking about it it probably would just help fix the distortion in place.

With regard to bolting it back in place once afloat though, isn't there the risk that when shes's lifted again the same stresses will exist but will be concentrated on the half dozen bolts i put into an 18-20 inch long repair which will then pull out. Visions of perforations like a sheet of Andrex here!

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[peterb]

That's alright. It's a well known fact that toilet paper never tears at the perforations.

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