I have a Rhodes 22 sailboat with some plywood core in the bow that turned to
mush. Water entered through a poorly sealed hole for a cowl. Last October I
scraped out the rotted core using wire. I was able to do this from the
existing cowl hole. The core I now need to replace extends about 1 foot back
& 180 degrees from the edge of the cowl opening. Ideally I would push in
epoxy with filler to fill the void but can't see an effective way of doing
that & repair such a large area. Then I thought about how handy it would be
to use an expanding foam to fill this area & then seal the edge with epoxy
at the cowl. The deck is very strong & does not flex. I don't think my foam
idea is a smart thing to do but I thought I would ask your opinion before I
abandoned the idea entirely. Any thoughts on fixing this without cutting
some fiberglass skin would be appreciated though I do have excellant access
to the damaged area from inside the boat.
Thanks
Marc