I love sun lounges.

Being an O/B guy,they are hard to come by because thats where our motors hang.
On my last 24' twin O/B Sonic I totally re-engineered the back deck to include a small sun lounge. If that boat was in the water and not under way, thats where we were.

Ive previously owned two I/O boats w/lounges and both were trashed.

I am currently re-engineering a 25' Checkmate I/O into a twin O/B and have the lounge off to redo the transom.

W/digging I realized it was worse than I thought and thought how common this is on our style of boats.
Based on that, I thought some of you might appreciate this thread.

In reality, the lounge lid is probably one of the highest stressed and abused parts of the boat. You open/close it 10 times per run, have 5, 6 people on it at dock, 180lbs + per = 1000 lbs + !
Add to that a water logged cushion? That water has to go somewhere? It finds all the bolt holes for hinges, latches, lefts etc.
Add the flexing, vibration, heat/humidity same from weather from the engine etc and you end up what I have.

Mine is a well built, balsa cored unit but after 33 yrs of loose/moving hinges, support mount bolts moving, loosing, an added hood scoop cut into the middle of it...
If I hadnt caught it, I would have finished my restoration and ended season #1 w/a trashed sun lounge.

Where my hinges mount to the lid, that portion is cored with plywood and not balsa so it doesnt crush. That area was rotted where all 3 hinges mount.
The lift support mounts have 3 bolts each and both mount areas are gone. This was an old enough problem, and were add ons w/only balsa reinforcement which crushed under bolt load, then rotted. A previous owner opened up the bottom of those areas to be able to bolt to top surface only.
Good idea for temporary fix.

Where the scoop was added, they did it right and sealed the now exposed balsa core but not the mounting bolt holes. That caused an 8" x 8" area of the core to rot.

On top of this, I found several areas around the perimeter that the seam between top/bottom skin had failed and allowed water intrusion.

I have since repaired everything but the scoop opening (which I am filling in) and that is in process.

Heres some pixs that might help anyone facing similar issues.

Core glued into the scoop hole.


I used this as a backer to hold the balsa core patch in place while the putty set up.


The bottom side of a hinge mount area. The material in the middle of the holes is glue/putty that I started from the other side. I taped the bottom, fill w/putty than flip over and do other side.


Bottom of the backer board w/wax paper so the glue doesnt stick to it. The core patches have flat washers taped to them to replicate the surrounding glass thickness so my finished patch will be flush after laminating it w/cloth.


A fan and scoop directing air to the area I removed the rotted core from so I can fill it w/glass fibre.


Better shot of the flat washers.


This was a large area of rotted core around hinge bolt holes. I drilled holes until I found the perimeter of solid core then sucked the holes/debri out w/a shop vac.


Same area after filling holes with glue/putty. Realistically I probably could have removed that area and re-cored and laminated as easily. For the glue/putty I use regular polyester resin and add a Cabosil type thickener and milled fiber (ground mat) to make a putty. I love this stuff and use it all the times. Done right, you can drill and tap holes into it.