CONTINUING LEAKY WINDOWS/PILOT HOUSE REBUILD -- A FEW COCKPIT COAMING DETAILS

[bob mitchell]

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As I was working on the port aft corner of the pilot house I made a few notes about the cockpit coaming/pilot house junction. To say that the cockpit coaming is asymetrical would be an understatement, and I only dealt with the first few feet. Because the outside 3/4" plywood sheathing of the pilot house extends back into the coaming, if the window leaks into the outside sheathing it ultimately ends up in the coaming. The inside 3/4 sheathing of the pilot house stops at the corner, so if water goes into it from the leaky window then the water damages the corner of the pilot house. I was lucky and got to rebuild both of them. Anyway, here are a few pics and diagrams. the first photo was from Eric's hull 12, which sunk, and was later brought up and crushed. The other photo, as well as the diagrams, are from the port side of my boat., hull #113, aka "Wilson". Incidentally, hull 12 is a West Coast boat and hull 113 is an East Coast boat. There are construction differences - for instance hull 12 coaming (maybe it was special for Rock Hudson, who once owned the boat) has a shaped cap under fiberglass while in 113 the plywood is screwed together and teak top trim is applied.

</The above photo shows the Douglas Fir wedges. They sit on a 2" by varying size sill (not shown in photo, but from 1 3/4" at cabin junction and increasing to 2 1/2" inches under the third wedge) that is screwed to the deck, which is underlaid by 2 more 3/4" plywood. The sheeting material in the photo is the 3/4" ply that continuied forward as the outside sheathing of the pilot house. Remember, or note, that the pilot house cabin sides slope inward from deck to roof -- which the slant of the outside coaming sheathing is a continuation of. One of the wedges (the one butting into the pilot house corner) had top edge sawn off as I was removing it. The part of the sheathing below the wedge is the part that connected to the sill, showing that the outside of the sill was also beveled. All in all the area below the sill is built up of lots of layers and were easy to work with, but the coaming itself was, though simple in structure, complex in shape The wedges are still solid but have a lot of ring shanked nails that I did not try to remove because I am modifying the whole cockpit.

So, continuing the pilot house/coaming rebuild on the starboard side, I found the junction of the aft wall of the pilot house/side wall of pilot house/deck/coaming -- all coming together at the back of the pilot house, a little worse on the starboard side, and since I actually got below the deck I did another diagram.

Anyway I had to take the starboard side one level deeper, SO YOU GET A LEVEL LOWER IN THE STARBOARD TOP VIEW (under the deck), in case you are trying to relate the port and starboard top views. The port and starboard are generally the same. I think the 3/4 plywood inside back of pilot house is a bulkhead that connects the pilot house to the hull.
By the way, BE SURE TO READ CLYDE'S COMMENT ABOUT THE DECK/SIDE JUNCTION IN THE ORIGINAL LEAKY WINDOWS FORUM.