I have some questions regarding a transom repair I am doing on my 89 grady gulfstream and am hoping someone with some more experience can help me out. I had planned to replace my transom due to some cracks between the stringers and transom. (See photos below) I thought that due to the cracks, what looked like rotten wood when I removed a couple of old screws from the bottom of the transom and the know issues that grady has with transoms I was due for a replacement. After removing the transom bracket this weekend I inspected to holes under the water line and found no rot. I then removed the drain plug housing and found the wood to be dark in color but not rotted and splintered like I expected. My questions are:
are the cracks enough evidence to assume the transom is bad
is there another way to determine if the transom is bad (I am considering buying a moisture meeter but figure this will give me ambiguous answers with different readings depending on where I measure)
if this was your boat what would you do?
The plan is to use this boat offshore and want to make sure it is safe as possible.
I’d get a large screwdriver and using the handle end tap sharply every couple of inches all over the transom. It should make a solid sounding thud when you hit it. An area of delamination and rot will sound differently than solid material. I can tell in one minute by tapping around if it’s good or bad.
If nothing else, I would at least grind out those cracked joints and re-glass the stringers to the transom.
Capt. Larry Teuton
Cracker Built Custom Boats
“Ships are the nearest things to dreams that hands have ever made.” -Robert N. Rose
Listen to Larry, he know’s what he’s talking about.
Definitely need to fix the cracks. If I was you, I would even “beef up” the area of the cracks while you are at it. Could it be that the bracket is adding additional torque and that is what has caused the cracks?
Thanks for the replies. I did tap on the transom with a screw driver and can hear a slight difference between the top and bottom of the transom. My gut is telling me to do the replacement to ease my mind. I did contact grady before starting the project to see how they fixed the cracks with the new gulf streams and they sent me a photo of what the new layout looks like. My plans are to take their idea and beef it up a little by running a bracket from the ribs to the stringers like a triangle. The hesitation I have I guess comes from in the past the transom repairs I have done have been clear failures with exposed rotten wood.
