Tearing apart a transom

After getting the transom well out of the way I had much better access to see how bad the rot was. It actually looks like the transom may not need full replacement, it seems that in the past there has been a sheet of plywood added to each side of the transom, with a hardwood centre. The plywood is rotten, but at this stage the hardwood core of the transom looks like it might be ok.

I cut the fibreglass through at each topside corner of the transom, so I could remove the "top" of the transom and check the core. The rot seems limited to the plywood sheeting, it doesn't extend around the corners to the boat sides, though I will need to pull apart a bit further to confirm this.

Next step will be to cut some of the fibreglass off the back of the transom, and see how much can be saved.

Transom Well

Ok, so the transom tear down has begun, the first step was to take out the outboard well, which was an add-on made out of low quality ply that had been fibreglassed over. Therre was an angle iron bar that ran through it and was bolted onto the transom. I undid the rusted nuts, and with a little persuasion broke through the fibreglass to seperate the well from the transom. The well was freehanging i.e. not attached to the floor beams (stringers?) so when I make the new well I will extend it down to make it stronger, with a false bottom so water will still drain out.
After getting rid of the well, I had much better access to check out the transom.