What do I do with this bottom???

[djn]

Hi All, I am planning an assult on my bottom and haul this spring. I am thinking of using Removall to take the wood down, but I am not sure what I should do with the iron keel. Will Removall work on it as well? There are very small gaps between planking; what do I fill them with? Here is a pic of it coming out of the water a month ago and one of us loosing the last race of the year. Cheers.

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a60/djnagle/NSSC2007FallHauloutjpg034.jpg

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a60/djnagle/NSSC2007FallHauloutjpg035.jpg


http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a60/djnagle/Sept2007012.jpg

[Wild Wassa]

Fair the bottom and foils as perfectly as possible.

Warren.

[P.L.Lenihan]

Wow! Nice boat. Can't help with the question but am curious about those white streaks bellow the water line. Are those from seams being forced opened slighty and losing some caulking or just anti-fouling not adhering to a caulking compound?
Oh, I do like the binder used to hold the lifting straps from spreading. I wish we had operators around here that would do like wise. Very professional!

Peter

[djn]

Hi Peter, I bought the boat up in northern lake Huron and had to sail it back down to Detroit with minimal time from prep. It was on the hard for five years when I bought it. I had to fill cracks with 3M 4200 just to get it home. That is the white strips. They peeled right off leaving the 4200 in the cracks. That is the lifting rig our club built and now we hire a crain to lift our boat into the parking lot for the winter. We are VERY careful when lifting our boats. Cheers.

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

Well, I would strip the bottom, and usually that takes a combination of stuff, remover, scraping, and sanding. It gives a great opportunity to look at planking and check for rot or the like. You can be fairly agressive in sanding the keel off, and one of the coatings that is commonly used is Interprotect 2000, which is an interlux expoxy barrier coat. It is quite effective as a sealer/coating for iron keels, and holds on well. Clean out any seams that need it, and you might need some new cotton in some of them... then a good quality caulking or seam compound. Pick a sandable one, and you can get a good finish on the bottom when you apply bottom paint. Don't skimp on your bottom paint quality, it makes a difference in not only antifouling, but in the level of build up. Nice boat DJN.

[Ian McColgin]

Definatly wood her and reef the seams, then spend for a qualified surveyor of wooden boats. You want to be sure that the stresses of sailing so soon after she was so dried out didn't create novel problems with the fastenings. In part, that means pulling a couple three dozen fastenings especially looking at problem areas like where fastenings go into the hood ends of frames.

Get the relevant Bud MacIntosh books for some instruction.

Not gonna say more here except if you're very lucky the 4200 and sail did not do too much harm. Oddly enough, maybe not as 4200, while unsuitable for a proper caulking job, may well have been soft enough that the swelling didn't pop any fastenings.

A conventional hull works as a compression stress structure with the inner layer of fiber caulking giving, once she's swelled, what amounts to a wood to wood pressure. The caulking putty provides the waterproof and should also be fairly firm. Underwater seam compound - brown - is different from topsides seam compound - white - because they live in different universes.

Welcome to the learning curve.

G'luck