Blank1989 Wellcraft coastal, with moisture in the stringers on meter testing. Would drilling holes in the stringer and injecting epoxy restore structural strength. Any other repairs short of tearing the boat apart and replacing the stringers? Bill F.

William Fletcher wrote:

1989 Wellcraft coastal, with moisture in the stringers on meter
testing. Would drilling holes in the stringer and injecting epoxy
restore structural strength. Any other repairs short of tearing
the boat apart and replacing the stringers? Bill F.



I don't know if it will restore strength but with damp core material
that is no longer bonding well to fiberglass decks etc. one common fix
(certainly not the by the book method of rip out and replace) is to
drill lots of holes into the area to get it to dry out as best you can,
then injecting a thin solvent free epoxy (and one that bonds to damp
surfaces!) into the holes to squeeze it all down until the epoxy gets
hard.

it wouldn't work in your case if stringers are damp but there are no
actual void spaces yet developed. You cannot use a 'penetrating epoxy'
in these situations because penetrating epoxies are mostly just solvent
thinned epoxies and 1) you don't want to trap solvents inside the hull,
2) epoxies etc. will not displace the water in the water damp wood

paul
progressive epoxy polymers