Mustangs,
It would not surprise me if you had moisture (or water) in this area? read on.
Panacea was built in 1979, in North Carolina. She is hull # 251. One day I found water (read a lot) when replacing the eye bolt for the centerboard pennant. This is a fitting placed in one of the ?dips? in the spray shield that the lines run through. I traced the water intrusion to the far forward end of the spray hood. You have to remove the wooden slide guards for the hatch on either side and remove the sliding hatch to get at this area. There was an unsealed end of a piece of plywood, both port and starboard, that make up part of the form for the curved spray shield. Water had gotten in under the spray hood and rotted both of these. I also drilled in several places under the cabin overhead, over the chart table and found water there as well. To dry these areas, I fabricated a tool from a 1 ? inch hose cut to length and an old hair dryer to put the hot air right at the plywood to completely dry these rotted ends. Panacea was stored inside for the winter at the time and this was a job I wanted to do in a controlled environment. Drying the plywood took a long time! There was also a 1 foot square spot directly under the old centerboard eye bolt that was rotted. I cut that area out from below and replaced the balsa with marine grade plywood cut to size and fibreglassed it back in place. When the plywood ends were completely dry I used a brush on the end of a long stick to fill the rotted fiberglass areas with thickened fiberglass. This took several fill and dry procedures. And this lead to the next project? Hatch slides
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