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Recently, I received the following from the admin of <www.paceship.org>. I thought I'd share this and my answer with the Forum in the hopes of eliciting other worthwhile information, or at least stirring up a little trouble to brighten a winter day.
>We had a person post on our forum regarding C&C deck delamination.
>This individual noted that
>
>"It is a well-know and accepted fact that C&C 27's are MORE prone to
>deck delamination than other boats of similar construction. To a
>lesser extent, C&C 24's and 25's are, also subject to this problem"
>
>Our experience is as we noted:
>
>"I have never heard that C&C has consistent "deck problems"....In
>fact, my experience suggests that ALL fiberglass boats that utilize
>balsa or ply cores can have both problems particularly in the vintage
>of these boats.
>
>We are wondering if you can concur or reject with this individuals
>assertion about C&C deck problems.
>
>We like to give boats a fair hearing on the forum and this seemed
>juxtapose to our experience!
My answer was as follows.
"My condolences - we get assertions like this on our site from time to time, too.
"This purported fact may be "well known and accepted" by this person and the people with whom he props up a bar, but it's a surprise to me.
"Do we have a reasonable sample of numbers for comparison? Doesn't appear so. Do we have any numbers for comparison - even if all they demonstrate is a local phenomenon? Again, apparently not - we are lost in the wonderful world of personal prejudice and unsupported hearsay.
"In that spirit, let's wander into speculation ourselves.
"First, why would C&C's be different?
"Was it the materials? Everyone used approximately the same types of woven glass and polyester resin then. C&C used Baltek balsa, supposedly the most consistent in quality.
"Was it the people? C&C in Niagara-On-The-Lake had a very stable workforce, partly because it was a good place to work, partly because the region was then losing jobs at a dismaying pace. Moreover, one of the perks of a C&C job was the opportunity to buy a boat at cost, and a lot of employees did so (Niagara-On-The-Lake Sailing Club was full of people who made sacrifices to buy a boat on this plan, hardly the behaviour of people who knew the boats to be slapped together). Build quality from Oakville was superb; the Rhode Island plant was uneven by C&C standards, but that plant - whose principal products were Landfalls of 40 ft and up - didn't stay open very long, so there aren't a lot of boats out there.
"Was it the design? Actually, this is a possible. C&C adopted balsa core because it helped make the boats lighter, hence more fun to sail. The glass skins were deliberately kept light to maximize this quality. Once delamination has started in earnest, a light skin might progress more quickly than a thicker one because it will flex more. This does not mean that a C&C is initially more prone than any other cored boat, as you quite reasonably respond.
"Is it the owners? Also a possible. Looking around my own club and others, you can see a clear link between people who can sail well, and who are therefore more likely to understand and appreciate the difference between a sweet-sailing boat and a tub, and their ownership of a well designed and built boat. Good boats get better maintenance than tubs because they are more fun, hence more likely to be enjoyed and valued. C&C's are fun to sail, hence their owners look after them, hence you are more likely to hear about someone either doing the work or having it done on a C&C than your neighbour's Garbagebarge 28.
"Finally, is it the numbers? A thumping 984 C&C 27's were built, just part of the astonishing flow that made C&C the world's leader in the 70s and 80's. If a lot were built, you're likely to see more of them with problems than boats of which 10 were built. If your correspondent has trouble with this concept, I recommend Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences by John Allen Paulos (available from Amazon - lots of fun as well as informative).
"So in sum (and, should you publish this, to help this person figure out what I've actually said):
"- Materials - no evidence.
"- People (builders) - most evidence argues against.
"- Design - pure conjecture, but all personal experience, boats and otherwise says that performance carries its costs; the intelligent owner understands and accepts those costs or he/she finds something more appropriate to his or her tastes.
"- Owners - pure conjecture, but most of the C&C owners I know have done some deck work or have pulled deck fittings to epoxy the holes and re-bed the hardware. None of them appear to resent having to do it. (Full disclosure: I have my deck organizers off this winter to epoxy the holes and will finish re-bedding them in the spring. It's just part of the cost of ownership.)
"Numbers - this could be the crux of the issue, so your correspondent should try to read the suggested book.
"So, to wrap this up charitably, your correspondent has seen a local spike in C&C repairs and has mistaken it for a global phenomenon. To be somewhat less charitable, he has mistaken the low-maintenance quality of fibreglass to be a promise of no maintenance and has failed to understand that some people actually look after their boats. To be utterly rude, your correspondent has a bad case of envy directed at something he may not be equipped to understand or afford.
"Hope this answers your question."
David Weatherston
Last edited by (2007-01-23 02:02:25)
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Courtesy of Darrell Nicholson, editor of Practical Sailor, here's an observation from his editorial in the upcoming February issue:
"Few cored decks past their second decade are without some problem areas. Sound with a plastic mallet for soft spots and delamination at all deck penetrations, particularly near hardware, hatches, and chainplates. Beware that the extent of the damage may be far greater than what even a trained surveyor suspects."
Ken Pole
1975 Mark III Santiva
Ottawa
Ken Pole, Ottawa
1975 Mark III Santiva
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Good response David. Wind Horse came with deck delamination which I'll get around to fixing someday. Every spot was under a poorly fitted accessory. As for C&C being the poster boat for delamination they should look at some old Carver Mariners. After rebuilding the entire deck and bridge (top, sides, the whole thing) on a 33 Mariner the small spots on my 27 was nothing to worry about.
Mike M
SV Wind Horse
#375
Galveston, Tx
Last edited by (2007-01-23 10:41:10)
Mike M
SV Wind Horse
#375
Galveston, Tx
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How many owners on this forum have or had any deck delamination or core failure?Please reply to this post if answer is yes.With over 300 members there are probably 1/2 of the present owners represented here. I think the answer will be most have not had anything other than a few intrusions at handrail mounts and other screw holes. I doubt a well built boat like the C&C has any more or even as many problems as other boats of the period.
I have some delamination around the chainplates. Nothing serious, and no real plans to do anything for the delamination. I did re-seal the chainplates with butyl as well as sealing all the other deck hardware to stop the water entry.
Bob Wooden Rhapsody 1975 C&C 27 Mk III
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> most have not had anything other than a few intrusions at handrail mounts and other screw holes
Do I read this correctly as defining this as a minor problem? Intrusions at handrail mounts appear to be the worst problem, perhaps because the coachroof flexes there, perhaps because the water can weep down from there and perhaps because it's such a bother to fix that people put it off.
Look at the Critical Path story in Black Arts and see how much of the damage is adjacent to or below the handrails. There's a boat from my club at Wigger's yard this winter having extensive repairs around the handrails and there was a 30 there three years ago, same problem. As I've mentioned before, when I was looking for a boat, I was aboard a very nice-looking one whose decks below the windows were so delaminated that the stanchions swung inboard to meet you as you walked that part of the deck.
I had my handrails off the year I bought the boat because they leaked. Regrettably, I didn't epoxy the holes then, but if I see so much as a drop out of them, knowing what I do now, they're coming off and getting the full treatment.
Incidentally, I mention above that I pulled my deck organizers this fall. I wasn't looking forward to this because when you back-fill a hole that runs right through the deck, the epoxy always loosens the tape that I've used in the past to block the lower hole, so the epoxy runs through.
This time, I tried two materials to block the lower hole. One was blue insulating foam (Styrofoam SM, carved into a tapered-plug shape), the other was a foam material called "gimp" (I think), a round, spongey foam material that is sold as a backing material to force into large cracks before you put latex caulk in the crack.
Both worked reasonably well, allowing none of the epoxy to escape. The gimp was easier to work with. As with the work done on deck tracks (Black Arts), I used an epoxy syringe and tape around the upper hole to minimize mess and simplify clean-up.
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
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C&C built boats are generally well constructed and engineered. But with any manufactured product, short cuts were taken. The core under the mast step of my former C&C 27, Hull # 57 was bulsa. I discovered this on a windy day when I observed water squirting from the aft two bolts that fastened the step to the deck. This is an area that should have been a solid laminate. In facing a repair and before cutting open the deck, I contacted C&C to try to learn how the deck was constructed. The person I talked to had no clue. I forgot if the engine stringers and compression post that I replaced were plywood. I think they were. I do know that the stringers under the mast step of my present C&C 30 were plywood when the step collapsed. Plywood in a bilge sump to support the mast on a 30' sailboat?
How many dollars did C&C save in these critical areas? Not much, but then we would be without this topic to discuss. Hope that your surveyor is experienced.
Ed Levert, #57 Strawberries
Some time back, I had a conversation with one of the early members of the C&C design team about his own boat. He had by chance met one of the foremen who built Corvettes at Morch Marine in the early days of C&C and this fellow told him that, basically, the builders were winging it through those years. No one had built fibreglass boats before, so they were learning on the job. Fibreglass appeared to be waterproof, plywood is strong, so plywood encapsulated in glass should be a perfect combination of strength and cost (remembering that one of the goals of glass boatbuilding is to lower cost).
We know better now - the glass encapsulation that keeps the water away from stringers also holds in any water that manages to find its way past the glass (not to mention hiding the subsequent rot), whereas if it were just wood, the water would dry, no problem. But it often took ten years or more for some of these issues to start showing up - I well remember being told that examination of collision-damaged boats showed that water in balsa laminate would not migrate beyond the point of penetration, so early cases were treated as isolated incidents - and people confidently kept building boats the same way.
Another issue is that contemporary manufacturing accounting practices virtually mandated some choices that we find bizarre - but that's too complicated a subject to go into here.
The long and the short of it is that, as the preceding message has it, a surveyor is essential.
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
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