Rot Around Pulpit Bolt Holes

[Squidward]

Long story short, someone struck my pulpit while exiting the marina. Not very hard, but enough to knock the bow pulpit off center.

The basic fix is being covered by the other guy, but it's a 33 year old boat, so the pulpit wasn't in showroom condition to begin with. The repair company offered to re-core the pulpit for 2 grand. I declined and instead ordered a new pulpit for $1200. They proceeded to remove the old one, and promptly offered to replace the square foot of deck underneath it for another 3 grand I declined that too.

But that doesn't mean I don't care about the longterm viability of the decking. Water obviously would've gotten in around the 8 bolt holes, but there's no way to know if it stayed around there or not. I haven't received details and pics from the contractor yet, but I get the impression they just filled the holes with epoxy and went home.

I have time before the new pulpit arrives. What do you think I should do? Buy a moisture meter off Amazon and some of that Git Rot stuff?

The boat is a Bayliner 3888.

 

[Comodave]

If the core is rotten then it needs replacing not Git Rot. It is structural and needs to be solid. I would bite the bullet and recore it. Then seal it properly. Marinehowto.com has an excellent article on sealing deck fittings.

 

[READY]

For me it would depend upon the condition. They should be able to tell you exactly why they suggest replacing. That area has an extremely heavy load so if compromised I would ask them for a better price but do the repair while it is exposed. A failure there could be very problematic and perhaps a safety issue. If you claimed on insurance at that time they would have a reasonable argument that you knew it was not in a seaworthy condition. $3k is not cheap but I would not sleep well at anchor if in fact it is significantly compromised.