Leaky 'Planet' - what are my options?

[Stephen Hawkins]

I have been enjoying sailing this vintage National 12 over the last month or so, but it has to be said she does leak quite a bit.

Although the paint on the outside is cracked in a few places it does not look all that bad on the face of it. But water is getting in and you can actually see it comming through some of the nails etc when we lean over - but I do not think that is the main source of the problem. That is probably to do with the centre board case.

Although this is not stopping me enjoying her, I am wondering if this is just one of the quirks of sailing a vintage clinker 'wood on frame' boat built using copper nails or is there something I can do about it?

The complex nature of the construction, at least from the inside, fills me with dread at the thought of stripping her, although there are a few bubbles and blisters from the last attempt of varnishing the inside. But I just want to limit myself to just tidying up the more obvious areas for the moment.

I suppose I am looking for options. To start with I want to paint the outer hull. I do not think it is advisable to try and take her back to wood as I do not think she is good enough - there is plenty of evidence of repairs on the outside so it really has to be paint. So I am thinking I will probably try and give her a jolly good sanding down to smooth her down as much as possible and repair any obvious sources of leaks.

But what paint? I do have the feeling that there is plenty of movement in the hull of this boat whilst sailing and using a hard paint would not be advisable as it just would not be flexible enough.

Any thoughts would be welcome.

[Michael Brigg]

If you have access to the sea, you could scuttle her and leave her on the bottom for a week or two to "take up."

She'll resurface somewhat heavier, but this is said to work for most clinkers.

It is very important that this be done in Seawater as fresh water is likely to cause rot. If not in seawater, then pre-treat the wood before soaking with clear cuprinol.

However...I do often wonder if this is best for dinghies that are mostly kept on land, and even for boats that live on a mooring, the strakes above the waterline will tend to be dry as well.

On a dry berthed boat, it is probably in the water for maybe only 1% of the time, so logic dictates that sealing the leaks is going to be better than mking the wood swell, although maybe that the soaking it gets for the 1% of the week that it is sailed, is enough to top up the moisture in the wood and keep the lands and rivets tight.

If it is leaking through a nail/rivet, it must surely be best to replace that rivet.

My personal theory is that when the wood swells in a clinker structure, it tightens up all the fastenings and joints and effectively puts tension into the structure, thereby stiffening it. So if you feel there is still movement in the hull, maybe it does need either re-fastening, or a bit more time in the water to take up.

[chris]

With Iska I hose in a couple of inches of clean water and leave it a week or two before using the boat. That seals up the C/B case to hog and the garboard plank to keel joints which are the most likely to leak.

However when I first had Planet she leaked very badly indeed - to the point of not being possible to use the boat. Firstly a couple of ribs had cracked and I realised that each each time I put any weight on the floor I simply opened up a large gap in the planks and water flooded in. So firstly really check all the ribs ( I replaced the broken ones but often a repair is possible). If it hasn't been used much it could simply be that it does need to swell and take up some moisture - keep using her and don't store in the sunshine.
I'll PM some more info...

[jonathan]

Fresh water +Maldon Sea Salt might do the trick. I don't think it needs to be a saturated solution. At present I have N443 taking up but I live near the sea so popping down to sling in a few buckets of sea water (muddy culking type) is no trouble.

[Rupert]

Did National 12's that were sailed on the river really rot away faster than N12's that sailed on the sea? I have a feeling not.

[Michael Brigg]

Did National 12's that were sailed on the river really rot away faster than N12's that sailed on the sea? I have a feeling not.

As I understand it issue with rot is not to do with the brief period of time for which the boat is sailed/immersed, it is to do with the time spent in a damp condition.

Your budgie smugglers stay fresh when regularly dried on the line after exercise, but left in a kit bag all week will develop a life of their own! (As will your wetsuit and towel)

As I understand it Salt water is alot less damaging then fresh because it doesnt support growth of wood rotting fungi. So standing rainwater is a keel killer, whereas sea water is not.

Clear cuprinol impregnates the wood with rot resisting salts, and as it doesnt appear to be detrimental to paint adhesion and so far as I can see doesnt alter the wood colour, (not on the wood I tested it on anyway) it seemed to me a pragmatic way of improving the longevity of the wood. If going on under paint especially. Does anyone else have experience of preteating the hog/rot prone areas in this way?

[Rupert]

Did National 12's that were sailed on the river really rot away faster than N12's that sailed on the sea? I have a feeling not.

As I understand it issue with rot is not to do with the brief period of time for which the boat is sailed/immersed, it is to do with the time spent in a damp condition.

Your budgie smugglers stay fresh when regularly dried on the line after exercise, but left in a kit bag all week will develop a life of their own! (As will your wetsuit and towel)

As I understand it Salt water is alot less damaging then fresh because it doesnt support growth of wood rotting fungi. So standing rainwater is a keel killer, whereas sea water is not.

Clear cuprinol impregnates the wood with rot resisting salts, and as it doesnt appear to be detrimental to paint adhesion and so far as I can see doesnt alter the wood colour, (not on the wood I tested it on anyway) it seemed to me a pragmatic way of improving the longevity of the wood. If going on under paint especially. Does anyone else have experience of preteating the hog/rot prone areas in this way?

They must have "taken up", though, in the fresh water, just as we are talking about with Planet now, unless salt sales were unusually high in Marlow?

[Michael Brigg]

Did National 12's that were sailed on the river really rot away faster than N12's that sailed on the sea? I have a feeling not.

Its all about recieved wisdom. The only real arbiter here would be a Double blind, Matched control, cross-over trial, in which the subject is randomly assigned a treatment and is matched against a control, same age and circumstances. Neither subject ,nor treater, nor tester must know the treatment administered.

This particular trial would be looking at a terminal outcome date (Rot) and so the Cross-over bit, comparing one treatment against another, in the same subject, is not possible.

Furthermore the outcome might need decades of treatment before an outcome is apparent, and if the difference is small, then to gain a "p" score of adequate size to indicate the difference did not occur by chance alone might require several hundred, or even thousands of test subjects.

Thats "evidence based medicine" for you.

Far quicker to get a salty tar to suck his teeth and tap his pipe stem against your hog to get the answer, even if it is different depending on how long he thinks your pocket is!

The real rotter of course is neglect. That's far harder to treat, and can usually only be prevented by expensive proffesional maintenance.