Anyone Who's removed your anchor pan....

[Kenneth K]

To anyone who has removed your anchor pan in the bow: Once the pan is out, are the edges of the deck sealed (enclosed in fiberglass/gelcoat) or are the edges open to water intrusion?



I'm getting some weird water intrusion in the foredeck. I thought it was coming from the pulpit stanchion base (pictured above), but I've since removed and sealed it, but still have the leak. I'd prefer not to pull the anchor pan before fall (rainy season) if I don't have to.

 

[Christian Williams]

On my boat the deck mold forms an "L". The bottom of the "L" has a piece of pine glued under it to receive the hold-down screws that go through the lip of the fiberglass pan. If undamaged, I don't see any possible water entry and no core exposed.

But the pan is heavily caulked into the "L", and any failure of that caulk would allow water to enter under edges of the pan.

As you know, the drain hose can also become disconnected from either end.

I don't know if our models were constructed the same way, looking at the 32-3 pix in Post #18 here suggests maybe not.

...
Ericson 381 anchor locker

 

[Frank Langer]

On our 1984 E30+ the anchor pan sits on a narrow fibreglass lip. With the anchor locker removed there is nothing keeping water from entering the hull.
I removed and rebedded it years ago when I found unexplained water in the v berth, which had leaked there from the seal of the anchor pan on the lip. No leak since that repair.
Frank

 

[nquigley]

To anyone who has removed your anchor pan in the bow: Once the pan is out, are the edges of the deck sealed (enclosed in fiberglass/gelcoat) or are the edges open to water intrusion?

View attachment 48249

I'm getting some weird water intrusion in the foredeck. I thought it was coming from the pulpit stanchion base (pictured above), but I've since removed and sealed it, but still have the leak. I'd prefer not to pull the anchor pan before fall (rainy season) if I don't have to

removing the pan on the 32-3 does not expose any core material. the lip that those screws go into is about 1/8 - 3/16" thick solid fiberglass with gel coat top and bottom, but not on the edge.

 

[Kenneth K]

Ok, thanks all. So a failed seal around the anchor pan will leak water into the hull, but not into the deck core itself. That's good news to me.

 

[peaman]

I'm getting some weird water intrusion in the foredeck.

Not sure exactly what you mean by this. I had some leakage in the forepeak, at the bottom of the forward-most wood panel where it meets the fiberglass liner which forms the V-berth. The leakage was collecting in the forward-most locker under the V-berth. I removed the chain locker and determined that the water intrusion was 1) through the poor deck-level joint of chain locker-to-deck, 2) down along the forward face of the wood paneling, and 3) between the wood paneling and a "backer dam" formed in the fiberglass liner. "Backer dam" is intended to describe a ridge built into the liner to create a landing place for, in this case, the wood panel at the peak of the V-berth. I liberally caulked that joint, then I applied an oil-based paint on the forward face of the wood panel to seal that, and then I got back to attending to the chain locker installation.

I didn't find any original deck-level wood which appeared to have been exposed to water. There was plywood surrounding the deck opening left after the chain locker was removed, but due to the construction of the fiberglass decking, that appeared to be well protected, and was completely dry. In the images in the link above, the wood seen around the chain locker opening is teak strips which I installed to serve as a backer for the fairly thin decking glass so I could get a good joint with the even thinner glass of the chain locker liner. I used butyl tape (the good stuff from MarineHowTo), so I wanted the screws to get a good bite.

Knowing what I know now, if your water intrusion is very similar to what I had, while it was disconcerting to me at the time, I would suggest you not worry about it in the near term, and just enjoy your boat until the end of the season.

 

[Kenneth K]

I had leaks under the starboard stanchion bases last year. Here is the stanchion base that is above the V-berth. No way to get at it without cutting/removing the headliner.

I drilled several 1/2" holes to help dry the area dry, but it kept getting wet during rains. Turns out, the water is entering from further up near the bow and running down along the outboard edge of where the wood coring is sandwiched between the fiberglass layers.



I'm trying to figure out where water is getting into the wood core in the first place.

 

[bigd14]

Ken I assume you have sealed and rebedded the latch catch in the photo, but have you done that for the anchor roller fitting on the bow? If all other fittings have been addressed up there and the anchor locker area is good the only other suspect I can think of is the anchor roller. You know the story of my fo’c’sle water damage. When I eventually took the roller off there was very little bedding material in a couple of the holes. However the moisture damage was mostly limited to the upper layers of fo’c’sle material that had been constructed above the deck core and separated from it by a layer of fiberglass. If I recall correctly, on the 32-3 the anchor roller is bolted directly to the deck (no fo’c’sle structure) so water could get into the core there and migrate aft.

Edit: on my 30+ the edge of the anchor locker is just fiberglass and gelcoat, no core material. I think. I’ll double check next time I’m at this boat.

Second Edit: Is that a crack filled with caulk on the starboard side of the anchor locker? If so I wonder if it extends under the anchor locker lip and could allow water entry?

 

[Kenneth K]

Is that a crack filled with caulk on the starboard side of the anchor locker? If so I wonder if it extends under the anchor locker lip and could allow water entry?

Thanks for all the tips Doug. Funny how someone else can glance at a few photos of a boat and find things the owner had missed.

I've been dismissing that "gelcoat crack" since 2016 when I got the boat. Everyone who saw it agreed--gelcoat crack. Seems every few years someone does a post here about a "bow crack" on the deck, always in the same location as mine, which never seems to cause anyone any trouble. Besides, to investigate it further, you have to chip away the gelcoat, which then necessitates a repair.

On further investigation yesterday, it's not a gelcoat crack--it goes all the way through the top layer of fiberglass and into the wood core.



Worse, that's the exact area where water pools around the upper rim of the anchor locker pan before it runs down into the pan and drain. So, there is always a bit of standing water there when it rains. You can see where the water stream flows in this picture.



Well, it's a good new / bad news story. I can likely stop the leak now, but will have a fairly difficult, upside down core repair to do next year after I take the anchor pan out. I'll probably just lay a G-10 strip in there between the aft side of the crack and forward past that stanchion base.

In the mean time, I dug out a channel and drilled a drain hole into the underside of the deck under the crack. I can cover the whole thing with polysulfide after it dries out a bit. At least I can catch any further water that gets in there, collect it in a funnel, and drain it into the anchor locker. Hopefully that gets me through the winter without any more water running along that outside corner of the coring.




Thanks for the help!

 

[bigd14]

Glad you found the issue! Too bad it will involve a core repair, that is a difficult area to work in.