Oh did I think today was going to be Rotten..

So there I was last night chasing the origins of leaks, something which has become a pass time since moving on to the boat full time. I was particularly puzzled how water could be coming in from so many different places even after the rain had stopped. Looking at the boat from within as without she looked shabby and used but ok. I leant back to ponder the issue and rather than the reassuring feel of the solid beam above my bunk. I felt a sensation similar to what I can only imagine would be close to sitting on an easter egg. The previous owner of the boat had loved to varnish and whilst outside I had long since removed this useless substance from the boat I had left the interior varnished as it looked good. The potential for disaster this discovery lead to was to be honest the most sobering experience to date. On inspecting the section I had leant on it turned out the wood had completely disintegrated under the varnish. I had huge fear for the overall boats integrity having no idea how in all the years I had owned the boat how I could have missed this. As at this point it was all ready late I placed duct tape over the hole to contain spores and tidied carefully the debris and disposed of then turned in.

Sleep did not happen. I awoke to find the world had gone mad the wind had gone round as expected but the surge hitting the Heritage pontoon where Sylmara is currently kept was producing a motion like a bumper car and to boot at 4am I heard the warranted cursing of John the local ferry man who had just come down to check his lines and found the third fuel tank had been stolen from his rib (Not normal for Brixham at all).

So as one might expect I was less than my usual happy self this morning. I went for coffee on the beautiful Brixham Sailing Trawler, Pilgrim. The skipper Brendan is a mate and a good person to talk to when you are in a panic. The conversation was basically cut rot out and fix or sail out into the next storm and give the old girl a viking burial.

So 10 min of chopping and hacking shows the reason for the failure. The piece which had perished was not in fact solid wood like the rest of the boat but a ply strip the previous owner had placed to cover the actual beam behind. This caused two issues. It masked the small hole which was allowing water to ingress between the main beam and the coach house wall this water then collected in the soft ply. Over years the wood must have soaked up quite some water, especially when you consider this part of the boat often being below sea level whilst sailing. Long story short this looked scary but was actually not world ending.

As this image shows the beam and coach house wall were very damp saved by the canvas which covers the deck and beam (It is still there under all the filler and sicoflex used to attach the strip)

This image shows the hatch removed from dog house. I have scraped back the ply where water had started to weaken the wood around the screw fittings. I will be fiberglassing the whole deck as soon as I have the funds so need a solid base again this might look drastic the solid wood underneath is still sound.

The lesson I learned from this experience is that you really can't take things for granted and put off jobs with old wooden boats. I have known the hatch needed stripping for a couple of seasons and I could have saved a lot of the ply had I acted sooner. I will not make that mistake again as you can see in the next photo the same thing has started to happen on the opposite side.

I had assumed discoloration you can sees was due to the wood being Ash which had gotten damp. Obviously not.

this will all be off tomorrow and then I have quite some work to make all good and just tomorrow before I start my new job at the Long Bar in Brixham and the snow returns.

Speaking of snow here are a few snow shots from the last dump.

See you on the water....

Past and present face off. Pilgrim and Vigilance are both traditional sailing trawlers built to work the harsh local waters.

Spot Sylmara.

Snow sand castles!?