I'm thinking you're dreaming about the xray :-)

I replaced the floor and some stringers in my 1990 bowrider. It was
built with the traditional wood stringers and ply floor. Under the
floor the original structure was more like a grid than traditional
stringers. The interspaces between the grid was filled with expanding
foam via holes in the floor. The holes were then plugged. What I
noticed when I removed the floor was that the foam did not perfectly
fill each compartment. Since they fill via a hole there is no way for
them to really verify that each one is filled completely. A number of
them had some water that had eventualy penetrated. Particularly where
interior parts had been attached to the floor via wood screws. The
water never had a chance to get out so it eventually migrated through
the fiberglass and saturated the wood. No way was there anywhere near
900lbs of water involved though. Probably more like 50. The floor had
a few soft spots. Test holes in the stringers brought up wood mush. I
ended up replacing the outer stringers and reinforcing the inner
stringers. After removing everything I was going to remove I left it
to dry for about 8 weeks with fans blowing on it. I saturated all the
wood that was left with lots of thinned epoxy through holes drilled
into it. I know it's controversial but I did not put any foam back in.
I rebuilt with a more traditional stringer design and added drain
holes though all the stringers at the transom so that any water that
gets into it simply drains to the bilge. I also put 8" access holes in
the rear between the stringers so I could make sure that the drains did
not clog. In truth I probably could have just gone on using the boat.
Even with the water and wood rot it seemed structurally sound. I think
most of them were laid up with enough fiberglass to compensate for the
eventual loss of structural strength in the wood.


Shortwave Sportfishing wrote:
On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 22:50:47 GMT, "James" wrote:

So what do you figure are your other options for finding out if the foam is
waterlogged or not?

I was thinking maybe NDT - maybe ultrasound or xray or something.