The weather was perfect for the job. Sunny and not cold. The replacement of the portside winch island ("hiloire" as the French call it) was a priority project. The old teak was seriously deteriorated (see left photograph). Probably a previous owner had once replaced the original solid teak with plywood teak. On heavy rain water would filtrate under the winch island and through the badly sealed screw holes and wet the underlying berth. It had to be replaced urgently and for that reason I had gone to France last week (see previous post).
First I removed the heavy stainless steel Enkes winch. It came off quite easily. I took the winch apart, bathed all pieces in diesel oil to remove the old grease, reassembled everything, applied clean grease to the bearings and oiled the pawls.
Removing the wood was also easy. Using a screwdriver, the teak plugs popped out and most of the underlying screws came out easily. To get out the few screws that didn't turn, I simply broke the surrounding rotten wood. With the wood removed I cleaned the underlying gelcoat. I then proceeded to filling the old screw holes (except the ones for the winch bolts) with West System epoxy mixed with 407 low-density filler. After it had hardened, this mixture was easily sanded level the next day.
Next was preparing the new wood pad. Using a plane, I got the boat's curvature right and I sanded down any sharp edges. I fixed the wood in place with a few heavy weights and marked the winch bolt holes from down under in the aft berth. I drilled the M8 bolt holes with a 6mm drill to make the bolts tap firmly into the wood. With a couple of provisional bolts to hold the wood in place, I drilled the rest of the screw holes. First I drilled 12mm holes for the teak plugs about halfway through the wood. Inside these 12mm holes I drilled a small pilot hole for the self-tapping screws.
Next I removed the wood, generously applied sikaflex 291 bedding compound and screwed the winch island firmly back in place.
With a drip of varnish I inserted 12mm teak plugs on top of the screw heads. After they had dried, using a sharp chisel, I cut the plugs level with the rest of the wood and sanded the whole. Finally, I saturated the wood with teak oil.