Carver Owners Forum

Ok, New to us 2004 466. Anybody else seen these issues?

Pre-purch Survey said -- "wet" around (1) anchor locker drains; (2) stbd side aft thru hull and (3) all over the port & stbd 'wings' of the swim platform.

So we took the boat to Zimmermans in Deltaville VA to investigate and repair.

On (1) - - I pulled the exterior clam covers off the drain holes myself. Stbd side -- NO SEALANT INSTALLED AT THE FACTORY OVER THE BALSA CORE BETWEEN THE FIBERGLASS OUTER & INNER LAYERS!!! What a crock.. They put a ton of sealant under the clam cover, on the outside of the boat -- NONE thru the hole and in to the inside of the anchor locker. Balsa was indeed soaked and I dug out at least an inch in diameter around the circumference of the hole. I filled the created cavity with wet-or-dry epoxy, let it cure, then applied sealant over that and under the clam cover and bedded the screws holding the clam cover.

On the port side -- since that drain was actually slightly higher from the waterline than the stbd side - it appeared no anchor locker water ever drained thru it -- and the balsa core -- also unemcumbered by sealant! -- was dry. I applied fiberglass resin over that, let it cure, then sealant over that and bedded the clam cover back in place. But note -- the surveyor's (and my, different brand) moisture meter said 'wet wet wet' all around and radiating from that drain location -- but the core was definitely not wet!

ok on (2) -- the stbd side aft thru hull -- output for the aft midships bilge pump -- again the moisture meters said -- wet wet wet -- around that thru hull and downward ;towards the waterline and radiating aft -- Zimmerman removed the thru hull (after I first removed the exhaust stack from the stbd engine!, to allow access to the thru hull squished into the hull in a slice between the fuel tank and the engine muffler) -- and they found the balsa core between the outer & inner fiberglass skins -- BONE DRY. Best anyone can tell, the meters were pinging on the actual bilge pump HOSE running along the inside of the hull! Plus other wire and/or vent hose running in the same area. Apparently the moisture meters detect things like that up to 1-5/8" 'deep' from the outer skin . Good grief. So Zimmerman dug out about a half inch of DRY balsa core around the circumference of the hole, filled the void with thickened epoxy, let it cure, then sealant over that and rebedded the thru hull, reinstalled the hose, I reinstalled the exhaust line (with new elbows and rubber joints!) yadda yadda.....

on (3) The moisture meters pinged WET on the tops, sides and bottoms of both swim platform 'wings'. The non skid top deck is a balsa core laminate, like the main hull decks; the sides and bottom of the wings are - solid fiberglass. Zimmerman reefed out all the caulking, top & bottom, of the joints where those wings meet up with the swim platform center section & the hull. Alot of that (original factory) caulk had broken seams and was discolored from water intrusion. They removed all the screws attaching the wings to the center platform and the hull sides. They removed the rubrail to expose the shoe box 'hull to deck joint' around the swim platform edge.

Approx 50% of the sealant was missing in the shoebox joint, especially in the wings. When they removed 1 set of 5 screws from 1 wing -- water came pouring out. No water came out of the the other wing but caulk was wet. Clearly -- water had been getting into the interior of both wings. The meters were reading water vapor/water/moisture on the inside of those structures. As best could be determined -- the laminated cores - i.e., the non skid decking -- on those cores, were not compromised -- it was simply water getting in thru the nooks and crannies of those (1) hull to deck joints (altho really hard to comprehend given the rub rail installed over that) and (2) the screw holes thru the wing sides and into the swim platform center section.

Anyway -- they resealed and reinstalled everything, used a heavy duty caulk called 3M Silpruf, and hopefully we are good to go. Those areas of the boat get a pretty good bashing from seawater when cruising , as you know.. its a less than admirable design IMHO shall we say! -- depending on caulking to withstand constant barrage of water -- but it is what we have to deal with on these boats.

If you haven't checked these things on your own (or similar) boat -- you might want to do so! They can become real serious problems if left undetected and unaddressed. Next area I have to investigate is up on the foredeck -- meters pinged around the windlass foot pedals, the forward edge of the front hatch and forward from there -- but the decks sound with hammer pretty normal -- so -- is it another false alarm? Or - real? Or, possibly a mixture of realities -- investigation will tell. I'll let you know.

I also found several places lacking sealant on my carver that needed attention, I've also posted about wet areas especially around the mounting bolts of . the oem dockbox mounted on the swim platform on the aft cabins like my 405. Carver definitely failed in this area of manufacturing to me.

"..(and others).." is right. And by that I mean ALL brands have their fails during the manufacturing process. I've worked for dealerships representing several brands and some of the things I've seen come out of the factories makes me wonder what they were thinking. Were the fails a lack of attention to detail and planning in the assembly process, or did an employee on the line have a bad day? Hard to say, but every manufacturer runs into quality issues now and then. Overall though, for their particular market niche and price point, Carver put out an excellent product.

I wouldn't place all my faith on moisture readings, there's just too many variables. It's a good starting point but further assessment is required to confirm whether the readings are accurate. Unfortunately insurance companies and potential purchasers look only at the readings and take them as gospel with no consideration of the whole picture.

I had a similar issue around the foot pedals for the windless come up during my survey. Previous owner agreed to fix which included removing windless, pulling wet core from underneath and re fiberglass entire area, coat windless parts underneath deck with black mammy tar and reinstall new foot pedals.
Walter

Thanks for posting.......you have brought to light the very reason for having experienced surveyors that can access findings and further investigate the root cause if need be.

I agree as did your Zimmermans as to the reliability of moisture readings......they can vary wildly between first thing in the morning and late afternoon depending on humidity, dew and recent rain. That said they are always a good starter point for further investigation in the right hands....the proper repairs should serve you well.

It didn't happen to me, but the guy from whom I bought the boat said that he encountered this problem, and he fixed it, so there should not be any problems in the future. I am kinda lucky that it happened to him and he fixed this problem already, and now I have no worries about it. This is for my own boat, but most of the times, I just go for a boat rental Miami, because they are much better, plus I have the free access to the sea, and I don't have to take my own boat with me, which is pretty problematic.

I have the same issue on my 2001 466, Carver failed to seal around the foot switches and the core is soaked. Been watching every You-tube posting I can find to determine a logical approach but don't see anyway then to remove the deck layer and grub out and replace the core. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
thanks,

GMC -- one approach that 'might' help -- since the foot switches are mounted above the 'cavernous' anchor locker -- is to work from inside the anchor locker, cut off the bottom layer of fiberglass, rather than the top non skid deck layer, to get at the core.

I haven't seen that done in person (yet) but if you luck up a YouTuber by the name of Trying Not To Sink -- he did this exact project on a Hatteras MY and filmed most of it...

Same problems for me - Anchor drain on Starboard and Foredeck to port near windless - having all fixed this spring in RI. rest of the boat still solid!

Hi team - so quick update from my side, the folks working on my boat are in the middle of doing the repair from underneath, as proposed above. They emptied the chain locker, removed windlass, chain roller, control pedals, etc and are doing all the work from inside the locker. estimate was about 40 hours.

Dave