Problems with my Swedish Ralph Osborn Koster
Hello all,
Summer 2010 I was here a lot asking for advice and probably some of you remember. After a long yourney I found my boat and it seemed to be in an extremely good condition. Still it worked out difficult to see and hear everything.
Under this link I have placed a range of galleries about the boat.
Index of /01Images/Sweden-Sailing-Boats/2010/Koster-project-web
01-The-Boat/ = about the boat
02-Hull/ = the hull, which seems to be OK, even after checking and knocking on the entire hull.
The boat was all it's live on the Swedish west coats in salt sea water. I took it half august 2010 to the Swedish east Coast, which is a lot less salty. (Baltic sea) and took it out of the water in October 2010 before the winter.
When i took it out of the water, we pressure washed the hull and a little chip broke out of the hull.
This spring I decided to inspect the wood around that area and to my horror to find out that I have problems at the very ends of the planks. (some more, some less)
Initially i thought it was wood rot, but it might be not.
After scraping the paint I can see that all ends of the planks have many cracks and I suspect that the wood was taking here more water in than the rest of the boat.
The harsh winters in Sweden will do the rest, with -28C, so the end of the planks really suffered a lot and some area's I could easily scrape out the wood.
see here this gallery;
Koster close-ups
Anyway,
last year many forum members adviced me to lower the keel and to inspect the keel bolts.
It's now going to be not only inspecting the keel bots but all wood as well.
Wonder what kind of suggestion you all members have in respect to repairing the boat.
I am considering getting a professional fitting in some pieces of wood and hope that I can afford the bill.
Any feedback welcome
Udo
