Jouster Maintenance and Repair

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Fixed keel attachment

The attachment between the fixed keel and hull is a frequent point of weakness in Jousters. A recess is moulded into the bottom o fth hull and clamped by 18 stainless steel bolts between the keel itself and a rectangular steel plate in the bilge. The minor problem with this is that the plate inside is mild steel and prone to rust unless kept painted. The major problem is that the hull layup is thickened slightly at the point of attachment, but this barely extends beyond the join. As a result the hull is really not string enough and the situation is worsened by stress concentrations at the edges.

The only real solution is massive reinforcement of the hull-keel join. I (J142) paid a well known naval architect to design a scheme. This involved cutting out the cabin sole and building up the layup to taper from standard to 1" thick by the side of the keel plate, with five 1/4" thick stainless steel floors, 3' wide, glassed in for good measure. The repair was a week's hard work for two people, but never gave any problems in the next 20 years.

Leaks

If you are plagued by leaks into the quarter bunks, check (1) the sealing round the windows (2) the sealing between the sheet lead tracks and the deck (3) the bolts holding the rubbing strip on and (4) the space below the rubbing strip, which should have sealant in it. All of these can and do leak behind the headlining, so when the water emerges under your mattress it can take a long time to discover where it has come from.

Headlining

If your original headlining has not yet fallen down, it will. The only cure is to remove the old headlining (a mildly unpleasant job), scrape off all the foam and glue adhering to the fibreglass underneath (an unspeakably unpleasant job) and then fitting new headlining (a horrible job). Allow at leas two days for each of these. Hawke House Marine sell the stuff - I sent them my old headlining to use as a template, so they should have the Jouster on file.