The knackered rotten freeboard (or the side in none boaty speak) on the starboard (right) side is almost entirely now removed and I’m cleaning up ready to measure up for the news sides. The plan is to replace the plywood freeboards with 9mm ply, then coat them in epoxy and fibreglass matting to make them totally water tight from any future water ingress. The actual structure of the freeboard and cabin is rock solid, it’ll be treated with epoxy for good measure too.
I’m planning to retain the freeboard that doesn’t need replacing and blend the new in with the old with some filling and fairing skills. When painted any joins will not be visible.
Here’s the freeboard before it was removed, the pictures can’t tell you how soft and rotten it had become.
… and here’s the same side, very raw photo, with the freeboards almost entirely removed. You can see there’s still the smaller section toward the cabin/stern to cut out). The photo pretty brutally shows the solid structure of the boat beneath that’ll soon be ready for the next stages.
There has also been a considerable amount of epoxy filling and fairing on the top plank beneath the freeboard to strengthen it for work.
