wetting dry hull

[Island_Tom]

How would you suggest re-wetting a dry hull? Carvel planked. She's been out of the water for some time, but otherwise in good shape.

Thanks!

[ 12-13-2005, 08:35 PM: Message edited by: Island_Tom ]

[Lew Barrett]

How about soaker hoses or soaker hoses and a wrap of burlap around the boat? I think the easiest way to affix all this is with staples if you can stand the idea of that. For a small boat you could also....carefully....run a hose into the bilge but watch the build up of weight. A pint's a pound the world around.....
Jim Lewis had a pool built specially to pre-soak his boats (Mavourneen and Corsair come to mind) and up here, they'll hang the boat in the sling overnight at most of the friendlier yards. A night in the slings should help a lot.
Lew


Originally posted by Island_Tom:
How would you suggest re-wetting a dry hull? Carvel planked. She's been out of the water for some time, but otherwise in good shape.

Thanks!

[Victor]

Up at Lake Hopatcong I watched them put a nice Chris in a sling one spring day. It sank immediately in two feet of water. With some of the huge engines they put in those things I'm not sure I'd want to go far from shore.

[ron ll]

Hanging in the slings overnight might not be an option for you on Vancouver Island. My guess is that your boatyard is on salt water and therefore tidal so the sling hanging won't work. I had that problem on my first haulout here at Shilshole and the result was a real firedrill trying to keep the boat from committing suicide the first night. Since then, I have hauled at a yard inside the locks, in non-tidal water so I can hang in the slings if necessary.

Have several large pumps on hand, and be sure they work. I had some borrowed pumps that had problems, which added a bit of adrenalene when they would quit.

[sdowney717]

I have heard of this being done, but dont know personally if it works.
Put strips of carpet between the frames
cut to fit, place them in with the nap touching the planks, then wet them down with a hose.

[Lew Barrett]

Victor,
I meant a Travel Lift's slings, not sliding the boat in at the shore . By definition, if in a lift you would then be at the shore and have control over depth of the boat. The burlap and soaker hose approach is one option if the Travel Lift is unavailable. That's a common approach here in Seattle during the drier part of the season, but admittedly usually employed as a sop (pun intended) during the course of the haulout to keep the bottom from checking.
Lew


Originally posted by Victor:
Up at Lake Hopatcong I watched them put a nice Chris in a sling one spring day. It sank immediately in two feet of water. With some of the huge engines they put in those things I'm not sure I'd want to go far from shore.

[Lew Barrett]

Ron,
Thanks for adding the comment about having pumps handy, which I assumed to be a given, but is well worth mentioning. Agreed if in a tidal area it would be interesting for the lift operator to adjust the boat for the changing tide, and being a newbie here, I didn't check for Tom's location.
I haul out in several different yards in Lake Union (back to Canal last year now that New Hope is gone) as well, and as you suggest it's common practice to hang the suspect for a few hours or overnight. I've never hauled at Shilshole so didn't have to face the tidal issue. I have hauled at Delta on the Duwamish which does have a tidal range and they were able to hang the boat in the straps long enough for me to be sure the on-board pumps would hold her up.
Two years ago we re-caulked and re-fastened and this year's haul for paint was drama free, best kind. I was out for a week one year in Maple Bay, the sun shone and the wind blew the whole time, and when the boat slipped back off the railway it nearly scared me to death to see the river of water flowing through. I stayed on the boat all night listening to the pumps run and it wasn't fun.
Maybe the soaker hoses/wrap approach to at least start the process, or does that idea not strike any chords?
Lew

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ron ll:
[qb]Hanging in the slings overnight might not be an option for you on Vancouver Island. My guess is that your boatyard is on salt water and therefore tidal so the sling hanging won't work. I had that problem on my first haulout here at Shilshole and the result was a real firedrill trying to keep the boat from committing suicide the first night. Since then, I have hauled at a yard inside the locks, in non-tidal water so I can hang in the slings if necessary.

Have several large pumps on hand, and be sure they work. I had some borrowed pumps that had problems, which added a bit of adrenalene when they would quit.........

[ 12-14-2005, 11:55 AM: Message edited by: Lew Barrett ]

[Dave Hadfield]

I do this every spring, and have for years. It works.

Dont use carpet. Use shop towels (heavy grade paper towel -- often sold in a blue colour).

Snap off about a 4 or 5ft piece, fold it lengthways so that it will fit in between the frames, and lay it against the hull planks from keel to the turn of the bilge. Do this wherever you can reach, from stem to stern.

Then spray the towels to keep them wet. It takes 4 or 5 days, which is no big deal when you're commisioning, since everything else will probably take you more than that. The planks, kept wet on one side like that, will gently take up and swell.

Using this technique I can launch (after a winter on the hard), hang in the sling overnight, and go to my slip the next day.

Without using this technique, I hang for at least 2 days, inching my way deeper and deeper, all pumps going like mad the entire time.

[Gary E]

A fellow I know pulled his boat out every year on a railway, there is no "hanging in slings" ever, your out or in... and at high tide that is a 6 ft range.

If your boat has been out and dried up a long time, the soaker hose inside is about the only way, and that assumes you can get to the inside. I doubt that many can get to places where laying carpet would actually be possible, and who would want that stuff in there after launching, not me. The other thing is to use a good seam compound that stops water, do a good job and it wont leak.

[sdowney717]

yeah I know the carpet would be tough to work with.

SlickSeam is a nice soft waxy putty with some fibers in it. Put it in the seams and it would be a big help until the boat takes up.

[wyndham]

A pair of oscillating lawn sprinklers, one on either side of the hull for a day or two will wet a 33 foot hull, 6 foot draft, 10 foot 6 inch beam.

[Dan Payne]

here in the south we find no substitute for letting the boat do her "Titanic" imitation, letting one or two electric pumps do all the work. Get a twelve pack, some Cohibas', and sit back and montitor the situation. After about 18 hours, you turn your back and the pumps are running dry.

[Concordia..41]

At a WBS seminar Giffy Full recommended making a visqueen [sp?] tent from the toe rails to the ground and putting a couple of humidifiers under the boat for a few days. Seems like you'd need a near constant supply of water to the humidifiers, but it also seems like less trouble then some of the other ways mentioned & like the sprinkler suggestion wets the hull from the outside.

[Donn]

How big is the hull, and what kind of hull is she?

[ken.bryant]

Naive question from someone about to build his first wooden boat: Does the same routine apply to a boat's first launching?

[Island_Tom]

It's much like a Herreshoff 12.5. 15', full keel.

Thanks for the ideas. I asked because I heard fresh water is not good for a hull (rot) whereas salt water pickles. Wasn't sure about the humidifier or sprinkler as this would be "fresh" water. Perhaps a pump and sprinkler down at the chuck would be the best of both worlds.

Also heard about sinking a boat and then bringing her up. Just doesn't seem like the right thing to do. ;)

[Lew Barrett]

I should probably say I'm not advocating for this (or am I?) but to be clear, the way I've seen it done, the soaker hose is used on the outside as a rule. The burlap wrap is, I wryly suggest, a variation of the plastic wrap/humidifier approach, though to my feeble (yet strangely heedless) mind, "humidifying" sounds more like a good method for keeping a wet boat wet to me. Don't know, never tried it. Isn't Florida always humid?
Likewise, around here I think I observe they mainly use the soaker to keep the boat from shrinking or checking in the first place, but without mincing words, won't the boat take up best in the water?
I've heard a number of suggestions, as simple as making puddles under the boat (Scottish humidifier?) to get some kind of swelling going. The soaker hose I've seen used though.
Boiler plate:: I've never pre-soaked my boat prior to launch, not withstanding my feelings after Maple Bay, not even after four dry months out for re-powering and extensive other stuff. God, I pray I never go through that again, ever.
I pull up the floorboards to see what's going on, and experience the thrill (or rush) of whatever water flows through the boat. The pumps have always kept up, even when the bottom was needy. In the end days of the old bottom, I considered the big flows a sign that it was time to get on it, and since we bore down and executed a truly cohesive approach and plan for the bottom, she goes back in with much less drama.
I do a crawl under the boat before we splash to check the seams with a can of Pettit seam compound in my hand. I'm not a shipwright.
There's a certain thrill to the Southern Method of "launch and watch" that I find exciting now that it's been suggested. In truth, it is my own method.
Lew


Originally posted by Concordia..41:
At a WBS seminar Giffy Full recommended making a visqueen [sp?] tent from the toe rails to the ground and putting a couple of humidifiers under the boat for a few days. Seems like you'd need a near constant supply of water to the humidifiers, but it also seems like less trouble then some of the other ways mentioned & like the sprinkler suggestion wets the hull from the outside.

[Nordicthug]

When launching a carvel planked boat that's badly dried, the first thing I'd do is pay the seams below the waterline with thinned seam compound or cheap window putty. This can be put into the seams quickly with a putty knife, then rubbed off the planking with a bit of dry burlap.

Alternatively, several burlap bags filled with fine dry sawdust then slit, can be at hand for keelhauling immediately upon launching. The sawdust floats up into the leaky spots in the seams. I've done this many times, it works well. Not perfectly, mind you, but well enough to be worthwhile.

Tacking soaker hoses to the planking along the waterline for a day or so works too.

Gerry N.

[Dave Hadfield]

Well guys, there're more ways than one to skin a cat, I know, but with me this ain't theory. I DO this every spring -- use the shop-towel method.

It's simple and it works. Pull up the floorboards, lay the towel on the planks in between the frames, and spray it with a hose twice a day.

Do not put anything that hardens in the seams. It'll just crush the edges of the planks when the boat takes up. If it was tight before, it can be tight again.

But if you must put something temporary in the seams, use Slick Seam, which is a sticky wax -- it won't deform anything.

My 40ft ketch is on the hard, subjected to dry winter winds, from October to May. I have to use these techniques every year.

[wyndham]

Dave,

Is your boat on asphalt or a gravel yard? If it's over a gravel yard there is usually enough moisture in the ground in the spring that it can be captured with a plastic or canvas tarp that is draped all around the hull. You might be surprised how humid it will get under the tarp on a sunny day. You can always help by running a hose under the tarp in the morning for a bit.

[Dave Hadfield]

Not a bad idea, except it would get in the way of working on the hull while the boat is taking up.

It might be less work, that is the wind didn't blow it away. The only way to hold it on would be tape of some sort -- which would probably lift paint off when you removed it. Hmmmm....

[Island_Tom]

Thought I would let you know the outcome...

After all the good suggestions, and considering them for their merit, it turns out that the initial wetting decision was taken care of for me.

Here's the procedure:

1) Buy boat
2) Drive 2.5 hours in the pouring rain!

I plan to take it down to the ocean today and dive it a good dousing of salt water and pump out the bulge. Won't add too much for weight concerns. Then I'll tarp it, and at 100% humidity, should go a long way. (I plan to throw a couple handsfull of salt ito the bilge in case of any water still there.

[ 12-30-2005, 06:29 PM: Message edited by: Island_Tom ]

[Dave Hadfield]

Pictures? Please?

[Lew Barrett]

Tom,
See you in the Islands. Good luck with the launch. It's been pouring down a flood here too. Keep your eyes peeled for us...
Lew

[Paul Girouard]

island -tom did you buy that boat shown a few weeks ago , the one the guy from PT . Wa was interested in as being built there? The one someone post Pictures of ? Paul

[Island_Tom]

Yes, that's me. Picked her up a couple of days ago and got her home OK. Will start in restore in couple of weeks as I have lots of other projects promised to my wife that need to be taken care of first.

There's pictures of the sail logo and the boat on the Misc. Boat related, but so far nobody recognizes it.

Tom

PS: I'll post more photos when the rains stop...figure about 40 day and nights the way it's going so far. ;o)

[ 12-31-2005, 01:34 PM: Message edited by: Island_Tom ]

[Dan Hobson]

All of the above! Everyone here has a great idea about how this is done. I was up at Seaview East last May and I watched a boat being re-caulked and repainted. After the oakum and cotton they went over with portland cement and then paint. There was no drama in the overnight hang after launch. She might have seeped a bit but the guy looked like he had a good nights rest. If I were considering using any fabric or carpet or paper inside to rehydrate my planks, I would want to make sure that the material would not disintegrate or give off any kind of fibers to the bilge. Oh and by the way, it's not that fresh water causes rot, it's that salt water kills rot and fresh water does not and therefore provides an environment suitable for growth. Sprinklers driven by a city water supply that has been chlorine treated and filtered will have a much lower probability of carrying rot spores into the structure than you think. Rehydrating a plank may be the one time that using a glycol based product will have the best impact.