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They built em with what they had I guess.  I like the sounds of your setup better, which was pretty much what I had in mind.  Either way, I'm building some new bulkheads from 1/2 ply, and they'll fit tight.  And be bolted through.  And the posts will be installed permanently, or mostly permanently with the intent to act as compression posts.  As they were, they just sat on the floor.  Real Great.....

Mine's fine... 

Look at the liner in front of the cross member on some boats.  Where the bulkhead posts are.  I bet that the liner is cracked where the cabintop has been pushed downwards.  Doesn't mean that the cross member is done, but it means that the cabintop moves up and down when you sail.

But I've heard of 2 that had cracked cross members.  I can see that the bulkhead is supposed to take some loading - but if you look at the way the thing is built its pretty shitty.  There's .750 clearance between the top of the bulkhead and liner/cabintop.  So the cabin top is not directly supported by the bulkhead.  The bulkhead sits on the floor.  The bulkhead is plywood, and fastened to the cross member with a half dozen wood screws on either side.  How much can this really take??  Maybe it's just me, but this doesn't seem to be the most desireable setup.  Compression posts would be far better. 

Based on what I've done, the cross member does transmit cabintop loading (mast or people...) to the hull/deck joint through the side decks.  The horizontals at the end of the cross member should be (but I'm sure on a lot of boats they were and aren't now) bonded to the bottomside of the deck.  I've got both bulkheads out, screw jacks supporting the cross member (acting as the bulkheads...), the new decking all bonded in place but havn't bonded the horizontals to the new decking.  Step on the cabintop, or even just sit inside and pull down on the hatch opening, and you can plainly see those horizontals pull away, down from the deck.  To me that means that some loading is transmitted to the deck and hull/deck joint.

Watch out for Crinan Marine..  Overcharges, and generally just does piss poor work.

86E number is not a serial number.  It's a Canadian license number,  found on the fro t of the boat.  The E designates the boat was originally licensed in Ontario, and the 86 designates the issuing customs office (86 is Toronto, I believe...).  Cheers

time, money, simplicity, the area in which I have to work, the fact that if balsa ever does get wet it turns to mush, etc etc

Did Taylor get smart and use solid glass underneath the stanchions on later boats?  Cause mine was all plywood....  And once you get plywood wet, there aint no way it's ever gonna dry out....  Cheers

Stef

Well.  It's done.  I cut into the deck....  From the bottom....  I've started the job of deck core replacement on my 74.  After some careful consideration, I decided to cut away at the liner inside to gain access to the deck underneath the chainplates and thru deck fitting area.  The good news:  the plywood coring is is segments.  So it all doesnt have to be replaced.  Doing it inside will make it easier than doing it fromt the outside, and I'll be able to hide the repair better.  The bad news:  the aft deck area - basically from the aft winch pad all the way to the transom (where there was standing water as the boat sat for 7 years) is not going to be accesible from the bottom.  These are the only trouble areas as found with a Sovereign Moisture meter and also a Wagner electronic  moisture meter.  Both gave very accurate readings as to the localized areas of moisture.

The plywood deck under the chainplates and thru deck fittings is wet.  Dripping wet.  Rotten wet.  REBED YOUR CHAINPLATES!  REBED YOUR THRU DECKS!  Often.  2 hours of work a year from previous owners would save this trouble for people like me.  Too bad not everyone thinks like me.  Too bad its a plywood core.  Good thing it's segmented......  Otherwise this boat would take 100 years to get done...

Anyways, some rainy day I'll post some pictures but for now, I'll just keep working on my boat.  Anyone done any repairs like this before?  Contessa related hints?  Cheers All...

The deck drains and cockpit drains from either side are teed together and drain into a thru hull on the opposite side.  On my 74, it looks stock save for some replaced hoses.  I don't really like it, as the thru hulls are below the waterline and there are no seacocks...  Sounds like it could sink the boat.  Anyways, I've just today pulled all the thru hulls and I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the drains. 

I like the idea of the scuppers as seen on later boats - which would drain water coming over the toerail quite fast as the boat levels out again.  The only thing I dont like is cutting into the hull deck joint,  glassing things all back together again, and keep it watertite.  That, and I don't have the foggiest where to find the aluminium caps seen on newer boats as well.  I could make some, but as the list of things I need to go grows I keep thinking I'd like to get this boat in the water in the next hundred years or so... 

Has anyone out there cut the scuppers in to an older boat?  If you did, let me know how you did it....

"I regret that this probably hasn't been as high-tech and exciting as you may have expected. Hopefully, next time."

Why?  How many hours has anyone out there spent conjuring up a fix to  a simple problem?  And then how many hours spent on implementing said fix?  And then after examining results of said fix for aforementioned problem, how many of us have thought "well, I could have just done ... ". 

After seeing the photos, I'm about 99.9% sure how I'm going to seal up my cockpit floor panels now.  My '74 has the three panels, so they'd nip down even tighter on the "gasket".  As far as speed goes, I'll always have cordless drill or a speed handle on board (for then the cordless drill gets wet.  it will.  you know it will.)

Now if only I could get Merril to tell me his secret on how to fit big engine mounts in the "engine bay"....

Why cast and machined?  Why not just machined from billet stock.  I've got the rudder off my JJT boat, and unfortunately havn't given much of a thought to it or looked at it in all that much detail.  It's on the job list, but among about another billion things to address I;ve first got to finish patching the hole I cut in the hull (starboard side, after removing the liner,  in the galley area where there was a nice fire) - pictures to come eventually.  Anyways, from what I recall, the gudgeons should be fairly easy to machine, and the pintles are just pins welded to some sheet ( < .250) stock that is bent and has some holes in it.  Could make the pintles out of stainless and the gudgeons as well, with a nice nylatron (wear resistant, glass or otherwise reinforced nylon.  and it machines really nice) bushing or something of the sort.  I'm reluctant to take on "new" or "side" projects as my progress on my "project" (boat) is more than a bit depressing, but if there is sufficient demand...  Cheers all.

So here's the scoop.  Last fall, I bought a set of new 2GM mounts over eBay at an attractive price.  The 1GM that was in the boat came home, and when I lifted it out, all 4 mounts fell into the bilge.  A little exfoliation corrosion going on there no doubt...  The price of new mounts is well beyond exhorbitant, and I'm on a budget and therefore determined to make the bigger mounts work.  Anyways, upon construction of a template with the intent to build some new engine beds (Thats another story, whomever installed the engine sure likes marine-tex.  Some people should not be allowed near tools and boats at the same time.), it seems that I'm going to have a hard time fitting this puppy in on the larger mounts.  I'd like to so something similar to the beds found in the "repowering a Contessa" site, but it seems that with the increased width of the 2GM mounts (1/2" either side) this is just plain not going to happen.  I know of at least one Contessa with a 2GM installed (Merrill...?) and I also know that both engines share the same transmission and therefore the rear mount position would be the same.  How did you shoehorn the back end of that engine in?  Did you use stock mounts?  I was thinking I could cut the mounts down a bit - ie taper the backs of them, and it seems that I won't be able to keep the front and rear mounts parallel either way, so I'll have to angle the rear ends of the rear mounts inward.  I'm not terribly crazy about changing the postion of the brackets on the engine (higher or lower or closer to the centreline) because thats not where they're designed to go.  I also can't move the engine a whole lot forward (probably 3 or 4" from original mounting position) because of the raw water intake....  Anyways, any ideas or past experiences would be helpful.....