Went for a three-hour paddle in R.I. yesterday. A fine trip, until I loaded the kayak on the car. I rested the hear hatch on my head, and the hatch rim broke! I thought the boat seemed kind of heavy when I took it out-there was a good deal of water in the aft compartment, which at first, I thought (hoped) might be condensation, but there was none in the forward compartment. At home, I found the aft rim trashed/saturated/delaminated. The rear bulkhead was also delaminating.
This put me into a frenzy of repairs, since I'm hosting a paddle to Selden Island Saturday. Actually, its lucky that it happened Thursday, and I had time for repairs. It would have been a drag if it had happened Saturday morning, on the way to the paddle.
Wow, I guess that all it takes is a pinhole in the (@#$&!) plywood to trash the plywood-just as happened with the skeg box, At first, I feared that my skeg box repair might be leaking, however, I now recall that the aft hatch looked a little "sunken" for a while, and lots of water must wash over the rear deck.
I might need to find a new way to treat plywood with epoxy.
I replaced the hatch lip the same way that I originally built it. I now think that some one of the parts must have not been epoxied well, started leaking, and let lots of water in. The water then found its way into the bulkhead. After the Selden Island paddle, I went to work on the bulkhead. It too, was disintegrating. This time, I tried fiberglassing 1/8" ply with 2 oz. glass, hoping that it might seal the plywood better that way. I also started the fillets from the compartment side of the bulkhead, and did a smooth fillet on the cockpit side.
I hope that I learned something from this 😌
