Deck Repair

I had supported both ends of the deck at the marina with steel cable and the boards that the cables attached to had pulled away from the assembly; evidence that the deck had sagged. Part of the problem was that shims supporting the deck on the side closest to the boat's port had come loose and floated away.

Vic came down Thu night and we spent time making repairs on Fri. He recommended putting in tack boards to make the newly replaced shim more permanent. That amounts to screwing small boards to the deck base and then running a screw through those boards and the shim.

Vic brought his winch and we used it to lift the deck up when we put the new shim in. We tried to use a heavy steel eyelet screwed into the deck as an attachment point for the winch but it just pulled out. We had more success using steel cable wrapped around the deck supports and another steel cable on an adjacent piling.

We hit Tuckerton Lumber to get reinforcing brackets that would help to keep the boards in place next time there was any strain on the support cables. We got an education from the man there who told us that chemicals used in new treated lumber (alkaline copper) were not compatible with galvanized metal and that we had to get coated screws and that any brackets we used had to have a Z on the box. We assumed that we had this new type of more corrosive lumber and confirmed it by looking at the label on some left over wood. More about the difference between CCF and ACQ treated lumber here.

We hammered in the 2 boards that had come loose and attached "Z" coded brackets.

We agreed that it would be smart to do more reinforcing work and will get together in coming weeks.