The Cockpit

The wheel had to go. It took up way too much room in the cockpit. Getting into and out of the cabin was awkward with the wheel right at the companionway. Its a 28 foot boat. It doesn't need a wheel or the added complexity. The large cables wound around under the cockpit and along the port side before coming back into the cockpit well to connect with a steering horn mounted on the rudder tube. The steering horn had a busted up box over it which cluttered up the cockpit even more. The first thing I did after cleaning the boat was to remove that obnoxious thing. Of course, removal of the wheel really highlighted my next big problem. The cockpit sole core was completely saturated. With the wheel removed it became obvious as to why.

An 8 inch hole had been cut through the cockpit sole for the wheel cables and the balsa coring was left raw and exposed. Once it got wet, it went soft and rotted.

Cockpit Sole Recoring

My cockpit sole seemed like a safe place to learn how to re-core so with great trepidation I approached it with my skilsaw. I didn't need to spend time determining how far the damage extended. From the survey I knew the entire sole was shot. The skilsaw has a plate that doesn't allow the blade to get closer than about an inch from the edge. This worked out fine as the core doesn't extend right into the corners anyway. Setting the blade depth carefully I made four cuts along the edges. Since the skilsaw couldn't get into the corners I used a cheap chisel and used it to cut out the corners. I also had to use the chisel to cut around the rudder tube. With fairly little effort, the top skin peeled right off. The smell of rotten core was pretty gross.

Most of the old core simply scooped right out. There was a little bit of dry, well bonded core that had to be scraped out with a hand chisel and sanded smooth. With the bottom skin cleaned up I cut out the roll of core material to fit. When I ordered the core I ordered balsa, just like the original material. What I received was a foam material. After a phone call I was assured that it would work fine and it was actually a much better (and more expensive) material that had been shipped by mistake. I paid the less expensive balsa price. Then, working quickly, I mixed up a big batch of epoxy thickened with colliodial silica and set the core down into it. In retrospect, I wish I had mixed up even more epoxy. Its hard to realize just how much thickened epoxy is needed for coring jobs. Now, I always mix more than I think I need and usually come out about right. Laying a plastic sheet over the new coring, I weighted it down to get a tight bond. At this point I introduced an error into the final product. The single layer of skin is relatively flimsy and the weight caused the skin to sag. Once the core was bonded to the lower skin and the top skin was bonded on top the sag became permanent. I have about a quarter inch dip in the middle of my cockpit sole. Anyway, I then mixed up a bunch of thickened epoxy and using a big trowel, I forced the epoxy into all of the nooks and crannies around and between the core. Mixing up even more thickened epoxy, I spread a bunch all over the top and laid the old top skin back on and weighted it down again. Later, I became a little concerned about whether I had used enough epoxy so drilled some test holes to see how I did. Everything looked just fine. With the old, (cleaned up) skin back on I used my angle grinder with flap wheel to dish out the edges where the old skins met. Then I used 3 layers of fiberglass tape in 2,4, and 6 inch widths to tie the skins together. Finally, mixing epoxy with fairing filler I spread the mixture around the taped seams and after it cured, sanded it smooth to blend it all together. Today, there is no trace that any skin repairs have been made.

Oh, while I was at this, I cut out a big rectangular hole for a nice aluminum access hatch.

Access Hatches

Atomic Four engines in stock Tritons are rediculously hard to work on because of the tight confines. This probably explains why so many Atomic Four engines are not maintained properly and have developed a reputation for being unreliable in some circles. In a similar vein, the propeller shaft seal in my boat had never been touched in 40 years. There was no way to reach it unless you were six years old and could squiggle down in there through the port cockpit seat locker. For most mortal humans, access isn't really possible. To fix these two issues, I installed a nice big Bomar access hatch in the cockpit sole. I think this is one of the best upgrades I have ever done on my boat. Suddenly access to the engine and propeller shaft seal is a piece of cake and working on these components is fun instead of an arduous challege. There isn't much to say about the actual installation. I cut out the hole, dug out the coring around the edges and filled the cavity with thickened epoxy, set the hatch in place and screwed it down. Well, I also drilled the hole for the mount screws with a half inch drill, filled with epoxy, and then re-drilled pilot holes in the new epoxy 'plugs' for the mount screws. This prevents further water intrusion into the core. This should always be done and really shouldn't need to be mentioned every time. (though I probably will from time to time...)

From the photo above you can see that I also installed two plastic hinged hatches for access to the house battery banks. I am not terribly thrilled with the plastic hatches, they are a bit flimsy and cheap, but the economics of the moment forced me into this compromise. At some point I want to upgrade these hatches to metal ones. I also installed a similar hatch on the aft deck. I don't plan on walking around there much so the plastic should be fine. If not, well then, I will put a metal hatch back there too. Or build something that would be nicer to look at too.

Cockpit drains

The cockpit drains in Tritons are simple fiberglass tubes that connect the hull with the cockpit sole. These seem to work fine but having an open hole in the hull below the waterline with no way to shut it off just seems like a bad idea to me. The quality of construction on these tubes leaves something to be desired too. I have also learned that Tritons tend to be a bit tender in the stern and with four or more people in the cockpit (or 3 'heavies') the cockpit well submerges below the waterline and seawater floods into the cockpit. This is an annoying thing in the midst of a party. For all these reasons, I decided to install seacocks in my cockpit drains. Unfortunately, I don't seem to have any good photos at the moment. Hopefully, I will find something and update this. Also note the nice access through the cockpit sole hatch.

After cutting out the old tubes, the seacocks were positioned directly under the drains and sit on a backing plates of 3/4 inch marine grade okoume plywood, saturated in epoxy. Today, I would use pre-fab fiberglass sheets for the backing plates but I didn't know about them at the time. There is only a few inches of clearance between the top of the seacock and the cockpit sole so I installed flush mounted thru-hull fittings in the cockpit sole. The backing nut on the thru-hull fitting can be loosened and the whole thru-hull can be lifted up and away to provide enough room to change the hoses when it becomes necessary.

Filling the old holes

The engine instruments were located on the starboard side of the cockpit well. They are being located to the aft end of the cockpit in the original lazarette access cutout. With the instruments removed, 2 layers of biaxial cloth approximately 12 inches square was epoxied behind the empty holes to close them off. Then epoxy with a fairing filler was used to fill the holes. The old holes where the wheel steering cables penetrated the cockpit well were filled in the same manner. Sadly, I wasn't into taking as many pictures back then of 'mundane' stuff. I am still rooting around looking for one that shows this process.

While I am looking for those pictures, I did nearly the same thing on the aft face of the cabin. A couple of 1970's era instruments were removed, the edges of the holes beveled, and the holes were then filled with 2 layers of biaxial cloth. Several coats of epoxy/fairing filler (West 407) were applied, sanding between coats, to get the surface back to 'smooth'.

For one sailing season, the icebox fill lid was 'glued down' with a polysulfide sealant. (The icebox was removed early in the project.) This didn't work too well. Water naturally pools in the forward corners of the cockpit 'seats' and once it reached the level of the lip around the icebox hatch, it ran inside soaking the the port settee ... repeatedly... despite the heavy application of sealant. The real solution was to remove the hole completely. After grinding off the lip level with the surrounding surface, a bottom skin of 2 layers of biaxial cloth was epoxied in place. To hold it up while the epoxy set up I used a piece of scrap plywood wrapped in wax paper and held in place with an angled 2x4 expertly cut to suit. I am sure there is something better than wax paper but in this situation it worked well enough. The surface is nearly impossible to see being above the galley table and under the 'bridge deck' area. To smooth out the surface of the bias a single layer of fiberglass cloth was epoxied in and then epoxy with fairing filler was laid on heavily. After sanding and painting it looks fine since you can't really see it anyway.

With the bottom skin in place, half inch balsa coring was inserted with thickened epoxy. Then two layer of biaxial cloth and a layer of 1.5 oz cloth for texture was applied on top. I think I applied an extra layer of 3 inch fiberglass tape around the edges to help tie it all in with the existing surface. The surface was then faired with epoxy and fairing filler and sanded to blend in.

The end result is slightly higher than the surrounding surface. In hindsight this actually turned out to my advantage. Water naturally collects in the forward corners and the raised section (its only slight) directs the water into the extreme edges leaving the majority of the area bone dry. It worked so well that I faked the repair on the starboard side too. I laid down 2 layers of biaxial cloth on the starboard side that mimics the new look of the former icebox lid area. While its strictly cosmetic and doesn't 'fix' anything it directs the water in the same way and keeps the corners much drier.

Prepping for paint

Preparing the cockpit for paint occured alongside the deck prep work and basically followed the same procedures. All the smooth gelcoat was sanded off because it was so heavily crazed. The non skid was sanded until smooth. The corners were rough sanded with the angle grinder and flap wheel and then a heavy coat of epoxy and fairing filler was painted in which was then hand sanded. I did this because it is much easier to hand sand fairing filler than the original crazed gelcoat. Where the gelcoat was removed completely on the vertical surfaces of the cockpit well the laminate was full of small holes. This was all 'painted' with a thin mixture of epoxy and fairing filler (West 407) and sanded smooth. Priming and painting then continued along with the deck and is adequately covered in the deck section.

Finishing touches

And then I started putting it all back together.
Installing the access hatches after the painting really brought the cockpit up to snuff.