CM38 Bilge divider mystery

[jeffm]

So I discovered something really odd as I was cleaning out the bilge. In the floor, just inside the entrance to the engine compartment there is a slot about 2 inches wide that opens to the bilge. This goes most of the way across the compartment and was covered with teak panels. The odd thing is that under the teak panels are vertical panels that slide down into the bilge, leaving a 4" gap at the bottom. They are made of plywood and covered with some sort of foil. Predictably, they are rotted almost to the point of falling apart. It is hard to understand why you would partition off the bilge in this way, or what you would gain by doing so.

Has anyone seen these in other boats or know what they are for?

 

[Warren Holybee]

Copper foil is usually used to make a ground plane for an SSB. The old school method was to aim for 100sq feet of it. But your description sounds like a very poor way of doing that.

 

[jeffm]

The film is not copper, so I don't think that was the purpose. It is the same foil backed fiberboard they used for soundproofing in the engine compartment, glued to plywood. I'm thinking this was for lessening the noise of the generator when at anchor.

 

[mpearson]

Strange and interesting. Maybe someone was trying to make baffles for the bilge? To slow water sloshing around? Or perhaps some kind of contraption they built to mount a bilge pump/hose?

 

[Cliff Porter]

I can't provide an answer, but only because I don't have a trap door before the stairs like a few other M38's I've seen. I don't know if someone re-constructed the flooring in my boat and decided to leave out the extra cover or not. My boat is a 1970 What year is your boat "jetfm?" Is it a Catalina-Morgan or a Charlie Morgan?
Whenever you get into a boat as old as this, believe me, you never know what someone did in the past to screw up what Charlie carefully thought through when he designed the boat. I have seen so many weird things that had to be corrected. Especially wiring! Where is your generator located? I was thinking adding one but I don't know where I'd put it. Currently I have a Honda I stowe under the transome hatch.

 

[jeffm]

I'm pretty convinced that it was for noise reduction at this point.

Regarding the generator location, it was on the starboard side in the engine room, mounted on a couple of glassed in stringers with a 1/2" aluminum plate. It was very tight, to the point where they had mounted the radiator expansion tank and several other items up in the space by the centerboard winch. It is really a great improvement having it out of there, and now I get an extra 12 gal tank for fuel that they mounted high in the port seat locker as a bonus.