Rotting Transom

[Peter GRASSL]

1982 Formula 233 LS

Everything about the boat excluding a few replaced vinyl sections, is original and suffering from rotting and age. I have recently noticed delamination of the transom and my hull plug fitting wiggles in place now which indicates to me that the marine plywood in the transom is all rotted out.

Is anyone experiencing this? I fear that this may be the end of the boat. Does anyone have input to how much money the boat would fetch at this point?

[David]

I'm sure you can get some advice here as many members have done extensive rebuilding. Your transom can be repaired.

[Santa]

Hi there Pete,
I most deffinately would not say
that problem is the "end"of the boat !

The only difficult part in re doing a transom on a formula
is lifting the engine and removing the transom assembly.!

This should not be an expensive process at all for you in USA.
Especially if its soft and rotted.

If you are a handy person, and you can remove the hardware yourself,( ie motor etc)
then the costings would be a mere drop in the ocean.

Essentially , all you are doing is replacing the
existing diamond shape transom " with fresh timber/ stuctual ply or
divynicell" and not altering or modifying anything !
Working at it from the inside out ,
not disrupting the outer glass shell !( alot of your strength comes from there)



It is recomended you cut back into your stringers 22 inches
back from the transom and replace those sections aswell.
Whether they need replacing or not, you generally need to
cut them back to work on the transom anyways .

In essance all you are doing is...
Replacing the large internal diamond section and glueing/ Glassing it fresh back in .
re fit and seal all the hardware,,

And vioalla !!

[Brian]

Peter,

I just finished replacing my transom while in the middle of a total install so the engine was already out. It's not that difficult a repair if you have some basic knowledge and patience. The guys at West System have a awesome PDF file thats about 5 pages long that will walk you through it. Just finishing up the outer fiberglass. See my pic's in my profile, one clearly shows the transom half removed and all the rotted wood. It probably cost me 300-400 dollars in materials excluding paint to complete(again engine was already removed)