Check Boat For Floor Soft Spots

Hello to all i have a 18 bowrider and in 2 or 3 spots the floor feels spongy like it might be rotting out.

Check boat for floor soft spots.

I have 2 very small soft spots in the floor of my lund pro v. One hole may not be sufficient. I use a very short drill bit so i do not go through the other side of the boat. I talked to some people and they suggested drilling small holes in the soft area and injecting it with a fiberglass resin.

It all depends on how safe you feel the boat is and how bad the rot is. Our 34ft silverton aft cab had some soft spots on the deck so instead of ripping up and having to repair the gel coat we decided to attack it from underneath. We recommend tapping around the soft spot with the back end of a screwdriver. Not sure of a great way to check for soft spots other than using your foot and bouncing your weight around throughout the deck feeling for it.

Fixing small soft spots in boat floor. I did hear from a dealer though that they changed the type of plywood they used for floors in 1995 i believe to a much better type that holds up to water and time longer. If you hear a hollow sound you ll have an idea if there s a weak area. Turned out the entire floor was rotten the stringers were rotten the transom was rotten etc.

Deck and stringer system problems go hand in hand. I too have a boat that had a soft spot in the floor. They aren t near each other and they aren t real bad but you can feel the difference. The holes need to be all the way around the soft spot.

The soft spots tend to be small enough at first so you need to make sure that the overall surface you are working on allows you to apply the epoxy and fiberglass properly. Soft spots on the deck are a sign of rotted and delaminated core materials. Also put several in the center of the spot. When noticing a soft spot on your boat you need to add more support to the structure to reinforce it as much as possible.

The extra holes will give the foam a place to escape. Say one every few inches. When the sound becomes sharp and the material gives good feedback to the touch you know that it s stronger. On inboard and sterndrive boats where transom flex is not as prevalent a core sample can be taken from the inside of the transom to check for moisture or rot.

I replaced the entire floor in one of my boats replaced a small area in another of my boats and also had a cheap boat that i didn t care about much and just screwed a piece of carpeted plywood over the soft spot to get it by so i could enjoy it right away. A soft spot in a boat floor can be surprisingly tricky to diagnose.