Bow Thruster Problem

In the fall of 2005, after hauling the boat for winter, I noticed some flaking of the bottom paint around the bow thruster tube. After a few weeks, water was still oozing out of the cracks around the tube. In the picture below, the dark wet spots on the right side and drip runs are evident after the boat was out of the water for three weeks.

I ground away the bottom paint and gelcoat to see what going on. What I found was quite appalling. The joint between the tube and hull was filled with what I call goop, a polyester resin with no reinforcing glass fiber cloth or mat. What wasn't filled with goop was filled with a pink bondo type filler. So I inspected the inside of the boat and things looked much better. The tube was properly fiberglassed in and there didn't seem to be any indications of water coming through at the joint. The picture below shows how the unreinforced goop was cracking around the tube allowing water into the joint.

Further grinding to remove some of the pink filler revealled why the water was leaching out for three weeks. There was a large void in the joint around the tube that was full of seawater. The pictures below shows the void after a piece of the pink filler was ground from the surface of the hull. Both angles show the voids that exist behind the filler material.

The pictures below show the hull after all the goop and bondo filler has been removed, and a proper repair with reinforced material and fiberglass mat has been done. Both sides of the hull had to be repaired.

Port side above, and starboard side below.

I contacted Mainship, and the dealer about this problem, and sent them pictures of before and after. Mainship did not comment about the problem but did reimburse me for the full repair. I was disappointed in the Mainship's quality of the installation, after seeing what a great job they do building the hull. It just doesn't make sense to cut corners at this stage of the construction.  So far, Mainship has stood behind their product and corrected any problems that I have found.