Rotten Ski Deck

[92SupraComp]

Hi guys. Boy it's been a while since I have been on here.

Our comp is still running, sorta... The ignition system , Pro Tec Engine Management, has really had it. Finally ordered a D.U.I. distributor. Should be here next week.

Well we had just brought the boat home for the first time this year (was already in the water for a while) and looked under the deck. Now we had already made repairs previously. Sadly I noticed a crack and water was seeping out. So I started tearing into it and here is what I have found so far.

It is bit hard to see as it has been baking in the sun, but there is a lot of rot. The wood is just mush... I have videos that show it better. The last pick shows the area traced out that does not pass the sound test.

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[92SupraComp]

So I tore into it some more...

In the pics, all of the wood underneath the left support, is just flat out rotten... So I have to cut all of that out and redo it. Good news is that as I go to the right, before I reached the middle support it is dry and sturdy. Odd news is that the right area simply delaminated.. The wood separated from the top of the deck, and the bottom of the deck separated from the wood... Weird.. But it is dry.

[SquamInboards]

Interesting that there's wood in there, I had no idea. But even my teak deck is not immune to showing its age. The boat may have "only" 1590 hours, but certainly a lot of hours have been spent on the swim deck with the engine off. I've had to reinforce it in a couple places, and I even raised it up 3/4" to keep it from being in the water so much. I am dreaming of building a new one, some day.

The nice thing with the fiberglass deck is, it's easy to reinforce from underneath. I wouldn't put any wood back in there.

[92SupraComp]

yeah.. Well the wood is very thin. About 1/4". For each support there at least an 1" on top of the 1/4" wood. Wood with poly ester resin soaked into it and then wrapped in glass is extremely strong and stiff. Plus everyone was still used to working with wood back then. So I'm not surprised.

And while people say the 92s and up are composite... Only the stringers are fully composite. The floors are still glass wrapped wood (very thick glass mind you, top and bottom) and the ski deck has a wood back bone. I will be making many many layer of glass to replace the wood.

I just took off and did the 3 step star brite kit for our ski deck on our Martinique. It has a big teak deck. I mean big. Had to scrub the under side so much.. (Had some moss growing!) It has soaked up 1+ quarts of oil so far. (Forget that apply once and wipe off excess! haha!) Fixed about 15+ screws that were pocking through (think someone sanded it in the past). Now it is looking amazing. When the boat is empty (just no people but still gas, lines, and boards) the deck sits a good 4-5" out of the water. (The water also beeds right off) So I know that the stringers and foam are pretty dry in it (whew!) Martiniques squat down in the rear and the deck is half submerged when they are water logged and rotten. So glad it sits high and dry with 900+ hours.