I've got worms

**wavedancer** · 9th August 2012, 12:19 PM

Shock horror, I discoverd that worms have been feasting on the bottom of WD keel. It appears that the dead wood on the keel is laminated King Billy Pine and the problem with the worms has been caused by insufficent anti fouling ( where the boat sits on the cradle for slipping). There is no sacrificail plate so the action I have taken so far is to chisel of the bottom 25mm plate off to a point where I could find no more holes, sand off rough area as best I could, Prime bare wood and anti foul and put back in water. I now have too work out a permanent fix. I belive I have 4 options.
Option1 remove all the bottom plate (25x175x1500mm), (front 2/3 of keel is lead) and fit removeable sacrifial plate. The problem with this is that normal slipping does not give accsess to inspect, treat or replace plate (if required).
Option 2 relaminate plate back on and copper sheath all wood are back as far as rudder stock which should protect all the end grain of the dead wood. Problem with option 2 is that I belive I would have to dry out the boat for a couple weeks to get a good expoxy bond ($$$$$$$$ in Sydney).
Option 3 put boat in my back yard and think about it ( Admiral want have a bar of this idea)
Option 4, sell the boat and buy Plastic Fantastic (Admirals preferd option).
Over to you Guys for debate.
Question time for the Tasweigeins. Any body got 1 slab of 25x175x1500mm and 1 slab 45x175x1500mm of King Billy Pine lying around?
If I cannot source KBP what other timber could be used for option 1 and 2?
I have attached a couple of photos and if you look closely you may be able to see that the bottom 100mm is slightly wider than the rest of the dead wood I belive this was replaced in Hobart Circa 1999.

**m2c1Iw** · 9th August 2012, 11:16 PM

Why use King Billy seems a strange choice for a keel cap, Turpentine is recommended for borer resistance and as it's for the cap I'd think it would be a good choice.

As for fitting hmm......some assistance by a good boat builder would be what I'd look to.

Good luck

**PAR** · 10th August 2012, 05:53 PM

I'd be inclined to laminate from thin stock, so the little beasties will have to chew through glue lines of epoxy, maybe filled with copper powder, as one of the thickening agents.

You only need a repair, so cut back well past known good wood and make a stack of thin bits, glued with epoxy and bed this to the boat, using screws. It's probable you'll have to pull this piece in the future, so I wouldn't bond it on, just screw over bedding (polysulphide).

Lastly a neat old trick I've used for many years is to attach a sacrificial hunk of untreated wood to the transom, just at the LWL. My usual choice is a 4" (~100 mm) square, maybe 12" (~300 mm) long section of balsa. Wood boring beasties love this stuff. It's like an all you can eat buffet, so they attack it, instead of your poison bottom paint covered boat. When the hunk of balsa is about half eaten up, I just replace it with fresh. The local hobby store can get you some 4" square balsa.

**wavedancer** · 10th August 2012, 10:51 PM

Thanks For the good advice Par & Mike, plenty of food for thought there. I spoke to the local shipwright today re putting WD up for 10 days so I could get 4 to 5 days work days (2x weekends) by yours truly, however this is not possible because he needs to keep the slips loaded so his crew was working ( fair enough). I wait with baited breath for the quote for the pros to do the work( cut out remaining 25mm back to the lead and replace with hard wood sacrificail plate). Bring on retirement and a different location away from the madeness of city life (MYC Devonport Tas $10.00 per day on the hard

).
Did I just see gold for Aus in the 470's, I got a cert 1 in dingy sailing in Phucket last year, maybe with a bit of practise I could go to Rio 2016

.
Ian L

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