A lot of hesitation and confusion what to do with the outboard engine and the transom of teh boat. The transom doesn't feel very sturdy anymore; people say not to worry and just hang my expensive outboard engine to that 40 year old rotten transom. As I don't trust this, I look up how a rotten transom can be repaired / replaced and do the inspection on this boat. A good inspiration is this site:
What is certain is that it is a hell of a work to replace a transom of a boat. if you let this work do by professionals it cost a fortune! So lets do a small inspection first;
And decide it is so rotten, it cannot serve anymore in a reliable way. Everyting needs to be removed; by hand, sander, knife, anything that helps. Hell of a job, but possible in one day.
Remove all the wood you can find until you have a clean polyester surface:
Bye, bye, rotten transom:
Welcome new transom.
So a well chaped new transom is ready to be installed. Typically, cheap douglas multiplex wood is used; you can add as many multiplex on top of each other you want. Two was enough for me. To be honest, I think I would not do this anymore with cheap douglas multiplex, but rather take more expensive multiplex which resists water long time. Maybe I would not even consider wood anymore, but ever lasting composite platic material.
Before mounting, roll the plastes with 2 component epoxy and fit in place.
In theory, it should be possible to pour the epxoy glue from the top and let it fill all cavities between the polyester skin and the wood. In practice, it sucks ! the epoxy slowly finds its way out every opening at the sides and bottom. You end up cleaning the epoxy forever.
If I would do it again, I would not look at epoxy glue anymore, but use polyurethane foam/glue that expands and fills up all cavities without escaping from all sides.
After finishing the wholes in the polyester, we soon find out that the epoxy didn't fill the space between the polyester and the multiplex at all ! This space will fill up with moisture causing the wood to rot over time.
Anyhow, no way back now; we did as prescribed and it will serve its time.
Now, repair the old holes in the transom; from the stair, the water-ski cord hooks and the inboard engine tail. Some usefull information how to do this kind of repairs can be found here: http://www.pbo.co.uk/expert-advice/repairing-holes-in-grp-26713 .
Once sufficient finished; sand everything until you get a smooth surface and finish it with nice looking painting:
With the rest of the paint, I added some blue stripe on the front.
