Wet Transom

[Duncan biscuits]

Hello,last year my wife and i upgraded our 5m tinnie to a 2007 Haines Hunter 600 Offshore. The boat is in great condition all round and obviously taken care of by the previous owner. After some rain a few weeks ago i noticed some brown water stains coming from one of my scuppers in the well. It looked as if the sealant has fatigued and broken down and has started to let in water. I've removed the scupper to find that the ply inside the transom is damp. The gelcoat shows no signs of fatigue, there are no other brown water stains coming from around the motor mounting bolt holes, ladder mounts or tie-down eyelets.My questions are should i try and dry the transom somehow? i experimented with a vacuum pump and drew some more moisture out over an hour, maybe

[Noelm]

Not too sure what you're calling a "scupper" can you post a picture? One things certain though (in my opinion) dry it out, it could have been leaking for ages and rot has started, without "poking around" it's impossible to say.

[Duncan biscuits]

Hi Noelm, ive added a few photos to the original post of the scuppers

[Noelm]

OH, I see what you mean, those stupid plastic drain things always leak, best guess it's been going on for ages, can you feel any "soft" spots pushing hard around the drain? The gelcoat looking good is normal, even with rotten ttansoms!

[chris69]

Get a medium size screw drive and with the handle end gently tap the transom from the outside in towards the middle and around the transom if the transom is wet you will hear a different tone or note when you tap.

[billfisher]

It will be hard to dry out if it has gone too far. The wood will rot and eventually the whole transom will fail due to dry rot. I would try sounding around the hole with your knuckles. Wet wood will have a dull sound. If it hasn't gone too far then a hair dryer would work. Then treat the wood with a penetrating epoxy. This will waterproof it and strengthen the wood if it has gone a bit rotten.

[Warrior620]

Does your boat have a couple of bulkheads in the bilge with bungs in them? I had a Haines 620 sf years ago that had them and when I took out the bungs rainwater came out ! I drained completely but noticed when I fitted a new transducer the transom wood was wet. It dried out over time and was never an issue . I have a 650 classic now and it has the same bulkheads in the bilge and when I was inspecting to buy I opened them and no water came out. If you stop the source and dry it out I doubt you will have a problem.

[Noelm]

It depends entirely if rot has started, if it's already on the way, you can't stop it, you can dry it, inject miracle glues, but.....dry rot (as it's called) will just eat it away, year by year.

[billfisher]

It depends entirely if rot has started, if it's already on the way, you can't stop it, you can dry it, inject miracle glues, but.....dry rot (as it's called) will just eat it away, year by year.

Well, the wood needs to wet for the rot to progress. So, drying it will stop it and penetrating epoxy will help too. It's just that drying it will be hard if it has progressed very far,

[ranmar850]

Was that plastic fitting just "sealed" into a hole cut into the transom? As in, hole drilled through, silicone smeared around plastic fitting, plastic fitting shoved into hole? What a shitty way to build a boat. If they did that up there, what did they do with the fitting of the bung? Or the outboard mounting bolts ? I'd advise you to remove the bung fitting and check--if it has been fitted the same way, your transom is toast, wet all the way through. Some supposedly "iconic" aussie boat builders got away with dreadful practices for years --Seafarers ( and Markham Whalers) with masonite flooring, or ply not sealed underneath, Haines Signatures transoms from the turn of the century that rotted out within a few years. I find it a little annoying when they now trumpet that they have no wood in their construction to rot. If you had followed proper boat building principles, you numpties, that timber would have never been a problem.

Anyway, rant over. But I would seriously advise you to remove the bung fitting entirely and check that. The hole should have been drilled well oversize, and the wood then completely sealed with resin. Scrape out any remaining silicone after you have the bung fitting out, and hopefully you will find a hard slippery resin surface right around the inside of the hole, all the way through. On the other hand, if you encounter wet wood, well, the rot will have set in. Good luck.

[Noelm]

Most of those plastic fittings were just added to a drilled hole, some had some silicon of some type, some done properly, and some just pressed in to make the hole look neat.

[BM]

Those plastic transom drains were a bad idea from their inception. Sure, they make a hole look pretty but we're never going to properly seal a hole.

They should have radiused the inner and outer faces of the drain hole and then finished in flowcoat. No decorative piece required.

I have to say that the yanks were better at finishing their boats for comparable year levels (we in a general sense built them better) but the yanks had smarter ideas on finishing etc.