DE32 Construction Technique Inquiry. General Forum Forums

Now don't quote me here but my guesses are ;. I've got a de 32 1977. I think the hull is made in 2 halves and glassed together. Under my keel I have the same outline. My rib down the centerline isn't perfectly symmetrical.  The was a gap in the bottom.I filled mine in and faired it. For the rudder the bottom is a bronze foot bolted and glassed over partially. I thought mine was  cracked there and started grinding. If my memory was correct I got to a bolt head then stopped. I didn't get to far into it to know much more

Yes, there is a large bronze fitting that the rudder sits on. Very beefy part. It is a U-shape and sits over a tab of fiberglass with four lateral bolts that attach it to the hull. When I first got Argyle, I had the cracks as you describe. I ground away all the epoxy around the shoe and removed the bolts. (Wasn't nearly has hard a job as I was expecting.) With the bolts removed, I tried to remove the shoe to inspect/seal what was underneath. I really really tried to remove it. It didn't budge. Didn't want to break the thing (even if I could) because then I'm talking to a freaking bronze foundry. So, I figured if I couldn't remove it, it was pretty secure. I replaced the bronze bolts with new and epoxied around it. Over the years I've had to re-do some small cracks in the epoxy and just this last spring I had to re-epoxy the whole thing after about 13 years. Hasn't been really been a problem. Never heard of one failing or falling off.

I'm not a boat builder but I highly doubt any boats are built in two halves. However, the molds are definitely built in two halves and the seam you see is just the joining of the two halves of the molds. The molds are put together and the hull is built from the outside in, starting with mold release, then the gelcote, then the resin and fiberglass. When that's done the two halves of the mold are separated, releasing the bare hull. The seam down the middle is common on fiberglass boats.

-Argyle