soggy cabin sole

[markpageant]

There is a small inspection plug in the main cabin in my Pageant.Lifting this shows there to be soggy foam between the GRP sole and the hull, its the source of significant pong. The sole is part of the moulded in liner so can't be lifted. I'd like to remove the sole, scrape out the foam, dry the bilge and put a new floor down to give access. I'm hoping that if i carefully cut the sole out with a small saw I could relay it. Anyone have any experience or advice ?

 

[MrCramp]

I had the same problem on my Freeman 22 river cruiser. After some thought I just got on and cut the floor layer with a stanley knife and lifted the surface and scraped out all the old foam.

Intend to lay strips of hardwood to make the surface up and then to stick the floor back on top.

 

[Richard10002]

If enough of us had soggy soles, we could say "Our soles are soggy" /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif




I'll get me coat

 

[oldsaltoz]

G'day Markpageant,

You need to contact the manufacturer to establish if the foam is only for floatation or is in fact a structural component.

Also get some idea of the sole support system so you can avoid cutting any support beams and save some time and cost.

You also need to find out how the water in there in the first place and fix that as well.

Some the early foams used do not cope with any moisture at all and break down to the slurry you now have. The primary cause is that the foam is not 'closed cell' so will take up moisture causing it to dissolve.

It is possible to cut out sections between supports and work through the resulting holes to access all areas.

If the foam is non structural you can replace it with swimming pool play rods, closed cell foam in the form of coloured rods about 3 inches this and a metre or so long, cheap too.

Let us know what you find out and you should get a few answers more specific to solving the problem.

Hope this helps

Avagoodweekend......