Halfway Through the Floor Replacement: 300kg Down and Counting

Harry’s floor is coming up next — an estimated 30kg once it’s out, though the real number won’t be known until it’s actually on the scale. Getting there means working through 30-something-year-old screws, most badly corroded, and a full sheet of plywood backing that’s coming out along with it.

Where the Numbers Stand

Before today’s floor even comes out, the running total sits at roughly 300kg removed. Ayden’s room is still ahead, and it’s a heavy one — 25mm marine ply with a non-skid vinyl layer on top adding another 5mm, a genuinely dense combination by boat-floor standards. The port-side floor is already in and bogged in place, with the forward sections on both port and starboard being tackled at the same time now rather than one side at a time.

Two Rotted Bulkheads, and Why

At the base of the daggerboard case sit two small bulkheads whose job is holding the case in place — both built from plywood, both edge-capped originally, and both now filled with water and thoroughly rotten. The question worth answering properly: why did these fail when the surrounding foam-cored structure hasn’t?

The likely cause traces back to how the edge was originally sealed. Cut a hole in PVC foam and leave the cut edge unsealed, and it genuinely doesn’t matter — the material won’t wick water regardless. Do the same to a plywood core and leave that edge unsealed, even briefly, and water finds its way in and the timber breaks down from the inside, exactly what happened here. The likely reason the original builder used plywood in this specific spot rather than foam comes down to damage tolerance — plywood handles impact and point loading better than foam in a high-load area like this — but it comes with that edge-sealing vulnerability that foam simply doesn’t have.

The replacement plan uses the same return flange technique covered in an earlier post, built substantially stronger this time given what it actually needs to carry: real load transferring from the daggerboard case into the surrounding hull shell, not just a floor’s worth of weight. Where the floor’s return flanges used a single layer of glass per side, this one needs three to four layers of the same 1,000g fabric on each face — somewhere in the region of 3,000 to 5,000 grams per side. Genuinely grunty, and very likely lighter than the original plywood arrangement despite the extra layers, while also removing the rot risk entirely.

Rerouting the Engine Wiring

With Harry’s room rebuilt, the engine wiring loom needed a proper rethink. It previously ran from the engine, through the main bulkhead, across into Harry’s room, through Ayden’s room, back into the engine room, and up to the helm — a genuinely roundabout path. The new route runs straight through a different existing tube instead, shortening the total run considerably. The remaining work is extending the loom with new cable to bridge the gap and reconnect it properly, which means the engine will be back to a fully working state once that’s soldered in.

A Small Aesthetic Choice

The daggerboard case itself has been finished in gloss white — a deliberate contrast with the rest of the boat’s planned finish, chosen partly because it catches available light beautifully, moonlight included, in a space that would otherwise be genuinely dark. A small detail, but one worth calling out as an intentional feature rather than an oversight.

Closing In on the Finish Line

The floor list is getting short: several rooms are done, with Ayden’s room and his ensuite the main sections left on that side. Between the daggerboard bulkhead replacement, the wiring reroute, and the remaining floor sections, there’s still real work ahead — but the halfway mark is a genuine milestone worth marking.

In This Series

The Floor-Building Assembly Line is one part of Paikea’s floor replacement. Follow the rest of the build here:

Follow the rest of Paikea’s interior transformation on the Paikea’s Refit page.