It was time to cut open the stringers and remove the rotted sections of the stringers and bulkhead.  Below are a few pictures of the engine compartment stringers, the port side stringers and the rear bulkhead.

Inside the engine mount stringers was pretty much confetti.  I removed the deteriorated wood and hollowed out the stringers.  Fortunately the transom felt solid.  It appears that there is a layer of fiberglass between the transom and the stringers, so the rot was isolated to the stringer.

Here are a few photos of the firewall bulkhead with some (but not all) of the rotted wood removed.  The black areas are rotted wood.  there was some evidence of the rot migrating forward into the outside stringer.

As the rotted wood was removed and the remaining fiberglass shell was ground smooth, you could see Formula’s construction method of raising the support structure about 1/2 inch off of the hull.  This is to give the hull better energy absorption in off shore conditions.

It took a couple of days working at the bulkhead removal, as some of the wood, although quite wet and darkened was still fairly tough.

Here are some photos of the bulkhead area drying out.

Go to Materials and Other Preparation Page

At this point it was time to get the boat ready for re-construction and fiberglassing.  so, some materials needed to be ordered along with some other prep work.