Inboard Transom Reconfiguration & Cap Rail Recore

[zendora]

Another winter is here so of course my mind has wandered back to SeaCraft projects like it always does. Last year's projects included repainting the interior & deck, so I hate that I'm considering anything involving cuts and glass work, but I would like to address my soggy transom, and I need to repair and reinforce the aft section of the cap rails. One of the 0 degree rod holders ripped through the cap, backing plate and all - thought the core was good in that area but it certainly was not. Can't go through something like that again so I have to redo both sides from stern to midship. Also, on several occasions the lack of deck space aft of my leaning post was a bit of an issue, so in a perfect world I'd like to:

1. Cut the cap at midship, remove, flip and recore everything.

2. With the cap off, cut out the aft bulkhead of the interior liner and extend the deck back to the actual transom. I'd have to move the batteries somewhere, most likely forward to the cuddy, which I'm fine with. Aside from that I'd glass in boxes in each corner for
trim tab pump, fuel tank fills, wire and hose runs, etc.

3. Before I put the cap back on I'd shorten the transom section to the same width as the side sections. This would extend the aft deck about 8" (x 7' interior beam = about 5 square feet of deck space) which may not seem like much, but I feel would make a difference in the end game with a mean fish.

Major challenges:

The top of the rudder post is right up against the interior transom bulkhead and a couple inches taller than the deck. One solution would be to shorten it so it and the hydraulic steering arm would fit just under the deck (would make a removable plate for access), however this is tricky because the exhaust tube is right under the rudder post bracket. Since I'm doing the transom, lowering the exhaust tube could be an option. The only other options are to either leave a small step in the deck to fit over the top of the rudder post (stubbed toes) or to fabricate a 10-12" wide section in the center of the transom that would extrude to where the current aft bulkhead is (less deck space opened up - may not be worth it if this ends up being the only possible solution.

Another motivating factor in all this is the damn vertical scuppers and wet deck. Moving the batteries forward, recoring the transom and (new) deck plate extension with divinycell, potentially shedding the aft bulkhead and half of the transom cap rail will help shed some weight, and I'd run new scuppers through the (new) wire/hose run boxes in the aft corners and out the transom.

At this stage I'm just looking for some feedback - solutions to the rudder post problem, potential issues I'm overlooking, is this worth it, etc? Let me know what specific pics would be helpful to sort this all out - for now here's one of the aft deck.

Thanks gents, looking forward to your thoughts.

Mike