I’ve been busy with the day job the last few weeks but managed to get a few hours in on Sunday. When I bought the boat it was clear that the sides (or freeboard as boaties say) were rotten. The central sections of them are totally knackered under the white paint and need to be replaced.
The good news is there’s a few options and they’re not particularly structural parts of the boat.
I can go the gold plated route and have amazing mahogany plank fitted to the sides (see photoshop mockups), making Perdita look like she should be floating through Venice or Lake Como. The other choice I have is to replace the rotten plywood with marine plywood, and repaint her. It’s very likely to be that option at present simply down to cost.
In any case, before I choose, I’ve made a start at stripping the rubbing strakes ready to pull the plywood sides off, this will help me see how far the rot has got and make a plan for the next stages.
The rubbing strakes are simply strips of wood screwed to the plywood and hull plank then sealed with Sika flex adhesive, so taking them off, apart from the odd nasty screw, is straight forward.
I ran out of daylight last week and the weather has been shit since, so I’m hoping to continue the work this week.
Once they’re off, the plywood side sections will come off, I’ll make stencils of them before they go in the bin.
Here’s the photos:
Below. The first screw on it’s way out of the rubbing strake.
Below. The side of Perdita, with a tapaulin bungy’d down. The grotty sides becoming more grotty as they’re stripped. The portholes are now removed and you can see the green/oxidised area where they were.
Below. Here’s where I’ve pulled the first plywood freeboard away to see how rotten it is. It’s rotten!
Below. Perdita is partially covered up now to protect her a little from the looming winter storms. I’ve got a huge 12m x10m heavy duty tarpaulin that will go on before the real winter kicks in, to protect any exposed work I’m doing on the freeboard.
That’s all for now! Thanks for reading.
Back to work for Rob.