Projects

Hello,

I’m a new owner of an old Tartan 30 with some issues. I’m currently in the process of replacing the rotted starboard bulkhead, fuel tank and rebedding all of the port lights but my latest is concern is the cabin and deck cores. The cabin roof core is completely saturated, confirmed by cutting open the cabin roof (pic attached). All this said, I would love some feedback from other tartan 30 owners. Seems to be fewer owners as opposed to other models. Thanks in advance! Taylor

Taylor, All is not lost. I have a 1978 T30. We redid the decks some 5 years ago. There were some smaller areas of wet core (stuff is like oatmeal) where we opened the deck like yours. After cleaning up everything wet and letting it dry we replaced it with more balsa core soaked in epoxy, fiber glassed over to replace the skin, faired it and them pained everything with new non-skid (Kiwi Grip). Came out well and is strong as a rock.

Thanks for the response! I was initially thinking that I could cut out sections of the top skin, dry out the core and then re-use the old skin, grinding out for new glass around the seams. Bad idea? Maybe this is more work than just laying down all new glass?