Deck Refit

Upon buying Moonshadow four years ago, we knew she had some soft spots going on the starboard side deck.  As time went on, the one deck prism started to leaking pretty bad.  At the same time we were not able to move the Genoa track car forward of the deck prism.  So, the summer of 2010 we decided to fix the deck prism and move it over so the track car would slide by.  Paul pulled up the starboard Genoa track first.  He ended up finding out that when the builders put the track on they screwed up.  Instead of having 30 holes for the track there were 60 holes.  On top of that, the holes unused were not filled with epoxy.  They were filled with caulking.  We ended up hiring Maryland Marina to re-bed the the deck prism.  The deck prism area was saturated.  A heater was placed in that area to completely dry it out.  Then, the prism area was glassed in.  Paul and I put the Genoa track back down.  We thought  we would be good to go. 

About a month later, we had to get a survey done for a new insurance policy to sail offshore.  In the survey we ended up finding out that our soft spots were much worse than we predicted.  The softness in the core ran bow to midships on the starboard side and the forward coach top was soft too.  We were able to get the survey we needed for the insurance and knew we had to address this issue in the near future.

We ended up meeting Anne and Miles Poor, MRP Refit, in Hampton, Va at the Caribbean 1500 Rally.  They are project leaders.  They hire the right contractors to do the job and oversea them.  We briefly talked to them in Hampton about our issue.  They told us that once we got to Nanny Cay, Tortola, that they would look at our issue and give us a quote on the repair job.  So, once we got to Nanny Cay we had them over to Moonshadow and found out that the fiber glass would all have to be pulled up in the soft areas.  Then, the wet balsa would all be removed and replaced with new.  Then new balsa would be glassed in and the fiberglass sections would be put back down.  The whole job was about fifty percent cheaper than doing it in the states.

The contractor that was hired, noted that he would love to paint the hull as well.  The hull had ten years of poli glow on it and looked hideous!  We do not recommend to ever use poli glow on your vessel!! 

Deck Refit Pictures