Irish Newbie Introduction

[Romaris]

Hi,
I would like to introduce myself and say “thank you” for all the postings I have had the pleasure of reading here, they have been most informative and entertaining. This is my first time posting on a forum ,as I have just bought I have just bought myself a wooden boat I felt that I had to tell somebody who might have the same enthusiasm for these beautiful craft. She Is called "Romaris" and is 52 ft x 15 ft x 5 1/2 ft draft ,Carvel Iroko Planking, Rock Elm Ribs, copper nail fastening ,powered by 2 Ford 6D's and was built by Dagless in England in 1966. She is currently in Devon England and I plan to motor her home to the Shannon next week where she will be able to move between the 200 mile tranquil river and the west coast of Ireland.
http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/23069875
( Still trying to figure out how to up load photos )
I think that while she looks good and received a good survey there is a lot of work to be done on her, her engines smoke and I hope that a head job will sort this out, she needs repainted anti fouled, there is some rot in the wheel house, some leakage in the teak deck and I am sure that various other ailments will appear once I mislay my rose tinted glasses. So I hope to pick your brains as there seems to be a huge amount of experience out there, and in the future I would like to be able to offer some of my experience and encouragement to others.
To start with I have a few questions and I would appreciate some feed back as while I have tried to read through lots of articles and manufacturers blurb it’s the people that ” get down and dirty “ with their boats that have the real life experience of how products perform and find real working solutions for wooden boats.

So Here goes

Surveying,
How often do I need to lift and examine the hull? (I.e. if 2 years is suitable will the anodes and antifouling last that long)

Priming and Anti fouling.
Once I get her on the hard I will sand back to the bare wood to see the condition of the wood below the water line and remove some screws and a keel bolt for examination. Hopefully, these will be in good condition and I will go straight to fairing and priming (not sure what products to use so some comments would be appreciated)

Anodes
What makes a good anode, how long do they last?

Painting
Is it worthwhile spending a lot on premium brands, will they last much longer than budget products, I would expect to have to repaint every 3 or 4 years

Teak Decking

Here in Ireland we get two types of weather, warm rain and cold rain, so a leak in a boat soon turns into a water feature, I know that the deck leaks, I know that my wife won’t like the leaks, I know that my kids won’t like the leaks, and I know that my life will be hell if I don’t fix the leaks.
So I am considering the following options

A. Sell the boat.

B. Sell the wife and kids (and NO they can’t cook clean or navigate)

C. New Decks.

D. Re caulk decks ( the deck has previously been routed and re caulked )

C. Canvas or glass over decks.

Thanks for taking the time to read this

Justin

[Hwyl]

Welcome to the forum, nice boat.

[MiddleAgesMan]

She's a beauty so no matter what you decide about the other stuff I think you should keep the boat.

I suspect the answers to your questions will be difficult, confusing, and probably contradictory. It all depends....

The only question I can attempt to answer is about the paint. In general carvel hulls take traditional finishes best. No need to buy the expensive hi-tech paints. A traditional oil-based marine or house enamel will give good service and is easy to touch up or recoat. Some on here even swear the modern acrylic latex paints are best. As for what to use on her bottom the best answers will come from the folks in your own backyard. What works best here is probably not what works best in your home waters.

[mizzenman]

the longelivity of the antifouling depends on how agressive the weeds and other marine nastines in your area are.

I prefere to scrap the botom of the boat before puting on new antifoul.

Anodes are made of zink. And I'd say you should get minimum 2 yeras out of them. Just dont paint them. Anyway they are not a big cost.

Are the decks teak over plywod or massive teak?

[Peerie Maa]

the longelivity of the antifouling depends on how agressive the weeds and other marine nastines in your area are.

I prefere to scrape the botom of the boat before puting on new antifoul.

Anodes are made of zink. And I'd say you should get minimum 2 yeras out of them. Just dont paint them. Anyway they are not a big cost.

Are the decks teak over plywod or massive teak?

A kind of important spelling correction there

[mizzenman]

Where was the error?

I never really mastered spelling on any language

[Hwyl]

Scrap ----scrape

[Ian McColgin]

I doubt I'd wood the bottom unless she's really leaky and you're planning to recaulk. If you neglected a proper purchase survey, which would include pulling some fastenings, by all means do so. You'll get the knack of finding the bungs or putty soon enough without taking all the paint off everywhere.

Keel bolts may be harder, but on a power boat like that you can tell lots from the heads you see in the bilge. They may be a bit huge due to rust if they are ferrous but rust is what? seven or more times the volume of the iron or steel so get the nut off - even if that's destructive and you have to rethread the bolt end. Of course if the bolt sheers off, you'll know that a bit of work is in order though even at that it may not be so soon as you're not talking sailboat ballast down there.

The cabin tops might most expediently be stripped and glassed, set with a flexable epoxy. The main deck depends on what you have and what you want. If it's canvass, no real problem going to glass after stripping. If laid wood, whether teak or other, maybe the aesthetics call for recaulking.

In either case, you want to make a major rot search. You have children. If you've nerve, give each kid a 1/4" or less chisel and direction to touch, not gouge around but if they hit soft black stuff, to then pry it out. They can pretend it's the soft flesh of the school bully or a despised teacher. (I had a friend who after an especially nasty breakup with her then boy-friend found twice the rot on her side of the boat as I found on mine during a haul-out. Motivation.

Get more pumps. Get a 2" hand powered diaphram pump as a back up to any electrics. Consider putting a Y valve just up from the raw water intake with a hose down to the bilge so in the event of bad leakage underweigh you can let the cooling system do some pumping. And whatever else, add counters to your electric pumps so you know how often they run.

G'luck

[Candyfloss]

Baby, you have dribbled a bibfull.

Watching with interest, and some scepicism. (Change the American misspelling of that word).

Your wife can't cook?

[mizzenman]

Scrap ----scrape

Haha yeah thats quite an important difference there!

[chuckt]

Hey Ian--What do you consider a flexible epoxy? Thanks.

Justin. Very lovely boat. Best of luck. I think there are some pretty good old threads on redoing tops including canvasing or fiberglassing. I use Google advanced search to find old threads on this website--works pretty well.

[Ian McColgin]

In the states there's a brand GluvIt. It's a sealer, not really a glue, but I've used it in laminations just fine and it's totally awesome for setting glass. Even thick layers handle the movement of wood quite well.

I am a great believer in getting to know a product and getting good with it rather than fiddling around with too many different propriataries. I just don't do enough to get good with a lot of different things. So since I've over 30 years practice with WEST, I've not gone to the all-Smith's approach in spite of the fact that I really appreciate CPES and would not use any other penetrating water displacing sealer. As it happens, I also have over 30 years practice with Gluvit and am too conservative to move from what works for me.

I don't know that it's available in Ireland, but something like it will be.

Before I started building the dory Leeward in '74 I got small batches of all the epoxies easy to get hold of then and tested varsious joints and such. I also cast little half dixie cups and just epoxy puddles on wax paper. WEST and others were very brittle, explosive even, except the gluvit which did not shatter when hit with a hammer. The brittle nature of WEST does not hurt its holding in a flexable laminated spring construction so far as I could see, by the way. In the thin mostly in the wood nature of epoxy in a well fitted joint, brittle appears to be no issue.

Any epoxy could be made to hold glass on the decks, but it can be a challenge to get it to really stay put over time if there's much movement. For that reason, I'd have more confidence in a softer more rubbery feeling epoxy like Gluvit for that job.

I don't know about near cousins or why this is but Gluvit can take a long time to fully cure. You can apply a weave filling layer the next day with regular prep, but I'd give it a week before finish sanding and painting or the continuing blush will lift the paint right off, giving a rather scaberous look.

G'luck

[chuckt]

Thanks Ian for an informative thorough post. I have this project in front of me as well