ME Didn't Pan Out

[dougd]

When I brought that boat home and asked my better half to help off load it she said, "This is a piece of crap!" She did help me get it off the racks! Well, I finally got it in the shop and took off the broken/rotted gunwales, Perception saddle and thwarts. Next step wash about upteen years worth of ground in crude off the inside and out. As soon as I started moving it the cold cracks that were in the hull began spreading despite drilling holes at the end of them. Umm, that's not a good sign.

Getting that done was a 3 hour back bending, back aching chore. Got it back to the shed in order to let it dry for a day or so and put some scrap strips of wood at the top of the cracks to hold them in place.

A few days later I go out, flip it onto sawhorses bottom facing up to try at getting the god awful degrading skid plates off. First piece was easy, next as well, third not so much and the fourth peeled up the whole bottom layer of the hull exposing the foam core. That was bad but checking out the foam it was brittle and dry enough to scrap off a layer of dust with a fingernail. I decided it was a bust. I've fixed a lot of boats but this one spent too many years outside in the weather and was beat to hell. Going to cut it up and send it to the dumpster. Sad to see such a nice hull neglected to the point of no return. Included a few pics.

dougd

 

[Jatfomike]

Wow! Bummer.....I agree, anymore effort would have been a waste of time.......Kudos for trying though!

Mike

 

[goonstroke]

That skid plate looks like dodgy seafood I definitely wouldn't eat.

Know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.

 

[Robin]

Nice try, too bad.

 

[dougd]

Sadly I took the saw to it this morning. A half hour of surgery and it's in pieces. Some will be used by another member here so I'm saving them, the flat ones. The curved ones will be deposed of. It was actually pretty depressing to do this to a hull that if taken care of would have had a future. Anyone out there needs a Perception saddle? A few pics.

 

[goonstroke]

If your skid plate is bigger than your paddle, it's time to move on. It is sad though.

 

[Steve in Idaho]

That's depressing.

 

[latremorej]

Bummer

 

[Sweetfancymoses]

I have to admit, I looked at the pic first and it looked like a bad tamale to me.

 

[pblanc]

Pity. The ME is a cool boat.

 

[dougd]

Peter, I was leery about taking those skid plates off but as I said earlier the poor thing had been rode hard and put away wet too many times. The perception saddle did come out clean, actually wasn't glued in but held down by two thwarts. Just needs a good cleaning and can/could be used again.

 

[pblanc]

Check the O-ring on the hatch cover of that saddle, and the hatch ring itself. The flat hatch rings often did not mount precisely on the face of those rotomolded saddles, which were often less than absolutely flat. And the O-rings for the hatches often deteriorated or went missing altogether. The hatch ring can be sealed around its periphery with silicone caulk if need be. The hatches are still made, but I don't know if O-rings can be obtained separately.

When those Perception saddles leak, it is hard to get all the water out of them, particularly if they are mounted in a canoe.

They were nearly always mounted on a pad of foam, usually Ethafoam, and secured only by two machine screws that went through a thwart and into the saddle at the front, and a bracket secured to a second thwart that secured the saddle at the back. If one tried to mount that long, inflexible saddle rigidly to the hull bottom of a Royalex boat, it created stress risers at the front and rear edges of the saddle that resulted in bad cracks in the hull bottom at those locations.

 

[dougd]

Well, I had to take a small board, a mallet and sitting on the saddle I got the hatch opened. I had heard some rattling going on when I moved it around so knew something was in there. Much to Mr. McCrea's disappointment there was not an aged and rotted tuna fish sandwich. There were in fact the following items:

A) A bottle of sunscreen dried out.
B) A film canister with vasoline in it.
C) A pair of large glasses with the wrap around the ear temples, which aren't available much anymore...bummer.
D) One roll of TP in a ziplock bag that is still perfectly useable.

After reading your post Peter I was surprised to see both the lid and the hatch opening had no O-Rings what so ever nor a trace of any, very clean. A few pics of my treasure hunt find!

 

[pblanc]

The O-ring should sit in that channel in the outer hatch ring. I am pretty certain tha Perception used 6" diameter Viking hatches like these: http://www.strictlysailinc.com/product/viking-screw-hatch-6-inch-round-white-new/. Chesapeake Light Craft also sells them. The hatch can leak a good deal of water without the O-ring.