Hannah and Jay

When we purchased our unloved hull there was a foot and a half of water sitting inside it. The outside strips of the baseplate had been overplated right the way down the boat a few years ago as well as two foot up from the baseplate on the sides. Now, the original base plate has suffered lots of corrosion where it meets the hull sides, and in the worst places it has eaten right through meaning moisture has got in between the old and new plates. We are taking our time to dry this out, going to get a dehumidifier in the boat and use a wet vac to suck any water out but I am scratching my head over the best way to deal with this. I am thinking that when we've dried it out as far as we can, I will tip lots of thinned down bitchumin down this gap between the old and new plates and over a few days, try and fill this gap with bitch. Then planning to treat all inside baseplate with vactan then copious coats of either bitch or daboline. We're aiming to have a dry bilge (aren't we all!) but i want to do the best we can to the inside of the hull now, while we can, to prevent the hull rotting from the inside out. Does this sound like a reasonable plan? Or are there other possible ways to tackle this? You're thoughts and experience are invaluable to us!

International Intertuf is the pricey stuff we plumped for

Indeedy, we have a springer with a V bottom, does this make a difference to the baseplate blacking debate? Any yes, you are quite right about the sprayfoam Q, any water in bilges should go to the central V and not anywhere near the sprayfoam, there would have to be A LOT of water in our bilge to affect the insulation!

do you really want to sprayfoam right down to the baseplate? instinctually, i thought not, just to go below the level of the flooring, I thought that maybe any water in the bilge may creep up in between the sprayfoam and the steel if it was foamed down to the baseplate... What have others gone for? Booking the foamers in the next month so any advise would be much appreciated! Thanks

that is the question? What have others done?

Do you really want to spray foam right down to the baseplate? My intuition told me to spray foam to below the level of the flooring but not to the baseplate but I'm not sure why!

Any Springer owners out there who've pannelled out themselves? We're having our walls spray foamed and we're putting in the flooring as low as possible as my partner is extra tall. We want to use sturdy ply for the walls, say around 8mm which isn't very flexible and due to the shape of the hull, leaves a problem in pannelling the part of the lower hull, please see pic below for part we're scratching our heads over as how best to pannel.... Any advise welcome!

Really? People bitch staight on to bare metal on the lower hull? I would have thought it would benefit from a layer of zp? Good point about the compatible undercoat Tam & Di, hadn't thought about that. And as for the porous nature of zp, JR, I was afraid of that! Had heard that rumoured but just put my fingers in my ear, la la la, guess we better get cracking with the undercoat!

I'm taking back the old and neglected paint on our hull and painting with zinc-phosphate rather than red oxide. Is there anything to be gained by two coats of zp seeing as the zp forms a bond with the metal? Thanks

Well thanks for all the thoughts and advise! I'm swaying towards pro spray job or celotex depending on how the prices compare when I get some quotes. I think a DIY job is just too much to take on as I work full time but I did like the idea of messing about with the spray in a silly white suit Now the issue of condensation is becoming my major headache (no one told me there would be so many when I started this boaty career!...) I'm boat sitting a friends boat for two months and thier condensation is terrible, it would really upset me looking at all the mouldy wood its causing on my own boat. Going to try and get as much ventilation going as possible in our craft, we're lucky to have so many windows, even if it has been called a goldfish bowl!

Does anyone have experience with a perkins p4? we have been offered a brand new one and are in need of a lump, should be powerful enough to pull/push a springer 57 no?

plodding on with the re-fit of our 57 footer and we're in need of reinsulating below the gunwales, has any one tried one of these diy spray foam kits sold for around £400? toying with the idea of trying it out, how hard can it be?! Its not like its messy stuff or anything......

I will also be painting the inside of the whole hull soon, was planning 2 coats of zinc phosphate but do you think bitumin would be better? I have also been recommended "shutz" a type of oily coating that they use on the underside of cars - anyone have any experience with this? Cheers

Can any one recommend a supplier of ridgid water tanks? we would like a custom shape to fit under the raised deck in the bow - I've perused a few sites but wondering if anyone has any particular recommendations Ta

hi Jon Ody is the man to see check out his website http://www.odyautomation.co.uk/

Nice one. Haven't chosen what we're blacking with yet but if we go bitch then yeah, letting some go off a bit then using it to pack the gap sounds like a plan. This stuff my welder recommended sounded pricey...Ta!

Murray again - (not trying to hit that 5 post mark to become a fully fledged memeber, honest!) We're taking back the old paint on the top of steel hull and putting new windows in. Some of the window apeture edges are slightly corroded (we were thinking of sorting this with a little chemical metal?) But I was really wondering how many coats of zinc-phosphate paint I need to use for a good paint job that will last a while? What have others done? Cheers Murray

Hello! First post as a new (old) boat owner! We have reached our welding budget limit and parts of the rubbing strakes have come away from the hull due to poor maintenance and bad initial welding. We can't afford to weld them back on this time round out of the water but a welder firend recomended this type of putty for metal that we could pack out the gap with and paint over which will provide a nice water tight seal, although apparently never goes entirely hard. Does anyone know the name of this or have any experience using it? Many thanks, Murray