Hello Robbin, My, you have good taste in boats, Montgomery and Cape Dory.... As we all know,any balsa cored boat can develop soft areas due to water intrusion Balsa is a wonderful building block, until it gets wet. My older M17 #92 circa 1976 had a small soft area on its starboard foredeck by the bow pupit when I bought her in 1997. I tried injecting epoxy. Over the years is spread to a much larger area. The only way to repair it properly is to remove the saturated balsa and replace it with dry material. This job I finally tackled. I cut out the lower layer of fiberglass in the entire foredeck from inside the V-berth, working on my back. The balsa core was like a soggy sponge. I built a large "patch" section to fit the area using the fiberglass lower cut-out as a template. The patch was a sandwich of epoxy and coremat. The tricky part was going against gravity to epoxy the new piece in place, trying to avoid any voids to the hull. I finished by painting the area and adding a hardwood brace along the top of the ceiling running from aft bow pulpit mounting bolts. I also installed port and starboard cleats on hardwood risers to replace the stock center cleat. So far, so good. No leaks and a firm deck. This was one nasty job. I love my M-17 so I got up the courage to undertake it. (although a romp in the park compared to Sean's M-23 refit). Larry Yake went through the same ordeal with his M-17 foredeck. This job would have been far easier if it was undertaken from the top. I chose the bottom approach because I didn't want to repaint the entire top deck. It would have been nice to be able to turn the boat upside down! Getting back to the Dory cockpit floor. Here you could cut out the top layer, remove the soft balsa, and have gravity work WITH you. Kerf cut balsa is available, and you could make a plug and epoxy the whole patch together. If careful, you could even re-glass the old fiberglass floor section on top of it. Then paint it to match the top deck. What size Cape Dory is she? Alberg designs are classic. If you decide to take on such an endeavor, don't forget to wear your respirator! Good luck! Bones ____________________________________________________________ Senior Assisted Living Put your loved ones in good hands with quality senior assisted living. Click now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=45qRqkaFSYVKV1zB5n6fKwAAJ1ApMe...