[white hawk]

Rich, I'm sorry to have to disagree with your N.J. advisor but I think he's wrong on two points. I believe the transom rebuild is better approached from the inside. It is a little harder to access from the inside but the completed job is invisible, and with a lot less grinding work. The old inside layer can be cut away with a 4" grinder and diamond blade. It fits right up against the hull sides for a clean cut. Also the clamping process is made easier by making cauls to fit the outside curvature of the transom and through bolting to pads on the inside which are insulated from the wetted structure with plastic wrap. The laminations are done much the same except that concurrent with general practice the resin is allowed to drain off, owing to the generally accepted fact that resin contributes no strength to the transom, only the wetted glass laminations do that. This is why boat-builders use the vacuum bagging process, to remove excess resin (weight) and leave only the wetted glass. Through hull penetrations are now made using the plug technique, preventing any future water migration into the wood laminations. Briefly this technique is accomplished by using a hole saw with a very long pilot bit. After marking the finished transom on the outside for through-hull locations, pilot holes are drilled from the outside. From the inside the hole saw pilot is inserted into these holes and the saw (rule of thumb size of saw is 4 times that of pilot) is advanced as far as the outside skin. Everything is removed as far as the skin, but the skin is left undisturbed. You now have a small hole on the outside and a large hole on the inside. The large hole is filled with FG putty (cabosil,glass fiber,etc.)a piece of plastic wrap and thin ply patch screwed to the transom keep it in place till it cures. When cured patch is removed and hole is re-drilled from outside. Water will not migrate through this plug into wood. Insofar as removing inner well is concerned, something to think about is that those inner wells also served to stiffen the transom, acting as a defacto knee brace to dampen transom flex. If your power selection will be within original design parameters you should have no problems, but if you are considering bumping those numbers up you may want to re-think that step.