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Advice please- rot!


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Hi all

 

brand new boater here. I moved onto my first liveaboard just a few days ago. She was sold as needing a bit of headlining work but otherwise good to go. Unfortunately I’m finding that the closer I look the worse it gets. I was beginning to accept that I will just have to gradually chip away at all the work while still living onboard, until I found the rot. The rot extends down the right hand side rear of the boat, and appears to come from an unchecked leak in the central cabin.
 

My question is basically, once I hopefully fix the leak and remove the rot, will she still be sound? The rot is in wood that meets the hull, so at the bottom of the furnishings, the wardrobe and the storage/ seats. But also in the wooden division between the central and stern cabin - and this I am most worried about in case it is structural.

 

My dawncraft is a central cockpit cabin, and the previous owner has done a (what I now realise is shoddy) diy wooden box over the central cabin 
 

Does anyone have any advice? Please consider that this is also now my home - I trusted the seller, didn’t know where to look properly, and I am certainly now learning from my mistake. 
 

pictured are the wall in question and what I can see of the rot- cant get a photo of the extent as i cant remove the floor without dismantling everything at the moment. The other vertical wooden fittings look similar at the bottom, if not quite as bad

 

thanks everyone

image.jpg

image.jpg

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The rot will not affect the grp hull so its all cosmetic.

It looks like wet rot or more accurately mould on plywood from the glue used. If you find a fruiting fungus body, bad luck, its dry rot and will destroy all the wood in the boat if unchecked.

 

Fix wherever the water is coming from.

Shower looks not to be watertight.

Is there water under the floor in the bilges?

Dry it all out completely first.

Replace any seriously weakened plywood.

Clean and varnish the rest.

Stop worrying, its a boat, they do this.

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I hate to be the bearer of bad news, obviously this does not look good.

You could spend a lot of money here and never make it a good liveaboard.

A good liveaboard plastic boat is a rare find. 

Might be best to tidy it up and get rid. 

Or do as  @Tracy D says, strip it out, dry it out, stop incoming leaks, insulate to cut condensation to an acceptable level. 

I assume you want a solid fuel stove installed to a professional standard, this may not be easy. You will then need to renew the BSSC certificate as this is a fundamental alteration so your current Certificate will no longer be valid imho.

If you have to pay workmen to do anything it will cost a lot, but I think that the stove installation is not for the average DIY person.

 

 

 

Edited by LadyG
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First off, despair not! Like Tracy says it's not key to the boat's structure and won't sink it. Address the issues listed. All of these things can be fixed with basic DIY skills. If you're pretty handy already then great, if not, start now, you don't need the skills of a cooper or wheelwright here just to work with plywood and framing.

 

At least you've realised that there's an issue at the start of spring where hopefully the upcoming months will allow you to get things properly dried and sorted before autumn/winter.

 

A centre cockpit DC is a decent boat and worth investing time into.

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⁹As said, the hull is GRP and will not be structurally affected by the rotten timber.

 

Cure the leaks first.  

Remove all rotten or soggy  timber in convenient size pieces.

Clean up behind.

Replace, with new insulation.  Always leave a gap between new and old so spores cannot settle on the new.  A  Rolls Royce job would see the hidden face finished with oil paint or varnish to make it last.

 

Finish the inside.

 

N

Edited by BEngo
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My comments for what they are worth. It seems from photos that Dawncraft canal boats have a very shallow V hull, so the flooring often actually or all but sit on the bottom of the boat at the sides. GRP boats also often have longitudinal stringers running the length of the hull. The floor boards often sit on these as well. They may be GRP covered paper rope, balsa wood, or similar. What this means is that you can have leaks or condensation that build up in the low areas formed by the stringers and the centre of the bilge may be fairly dry, but the outer portions full of water, gradually soaking into the floor and any bulkheads. As showers are usually located to one side of the boat, any leakage between floor, shower tray and bulkhead tends to fill up the outer channel.

 

I think that you need to lift the floor boards, cutout and replace the rot in the boards and bulkhead. Then take special trouble to seal the shower compartment floor to wall area.

 

As said, it is very unlikely to be a hull porblem.

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1 hour ago, LadyG said:

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, obviously this does not look good.

You could spend a lot of money here and never make it a good liveaboard.

A good liveaboard plastic boat is a rare find. 

Might be best to tidy it up and get rid. 

Or do as  @Tracy D says, strip it out, dry it out, stop incoming leaks, insulate to cut condensation to an acceptable level. 

I assume you want a solid fuel stove installed to a professional standard, this may not be easy. You will then need to renew the BSSC certificate as this is a fundamental alteration so your current Certificate will no longer be valid imho.

If you have to pay workmen to do anything it will cost a lot, but I think that the stove installation is not for the average DIY person.

 

 

 

The usual voice of doom! 

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8 hours ago, BilgePump said:

Never seen or read about a plywood DC.

Centre cockpit models were built of GRP in the early 70s so it would be a miracle for a possible earlier model to last to over 50 years old if ply and hadn't been maintained for every one of those years.

Dawncraft continued to market this wide range of wooden cruisers until 1966. All of the boats were of 6'10” beam with a generous 5' 10” headroom but the lengths and designs varied considerably over the years. They included a 19' two or four berth cruiser supplied either unpainted or fully fitted; two 22' four to six berth cruisers, one a Centre cockpit and the other a Deluxe Rear cockpit version. There were also two 25' craft, one with a Centre cockpit and the other a four berth Dinette version. A 28' 6” 6 berth Rear cockpit and two 30' boats, one a Centre cockpit and the other a Rear cockpit also featured during this period.

 

taken from Bluebird (la14.uk)

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8 hours ago, Tonka said:

Was the early dawncrafts built out of ply? Everybody seems to be stating that it is grp but do we actually know

Yep although I doubt few survive if any- there were also the Dawncrafts from Wroxham which were proper wooden carvel broads cruisers and a good few of those about (but not narrow beam)

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9 hours ago, haggis said:

The usual voice of doom! 

Well personally I don't think the boat is good to go with a solid fuel stove sitting on a shelf. OP is complete newby, she might think that is OK

She might never have heard about the Boat Safety Scheme, which is important for personal safety and for insurance purposes.

Easy enough to say replace the woodwork, but no one is born with the knowledge, the skills, the tools or the facilities to fit out a boat.

I met a couple last winter en route to France, in an old sailing boat with no heating, they were absolutely shivering, everything soaked through.  I fed them with hot cocoa and warmed them up for a bit, but really, it was all pretty desperate.

Edited by LadyG
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15 minutes ago, LadyG said:

Well personally I don't think the boat is good to go with a solid fuel stove sitting on a shelf. OP is complete newby, she might think that is OK

She might never have heard about the Boat Safety Scheme, which is important for personal safety and for insurance purposes.

Easy enough to say replace the woodwork, but no one is born with the knowledge, the skills, the tools or the facilities to fit out a boat.

I met a couple last winter en route to France, in an old sailing boat with no heating, they were absolutely shivering, everything soaked through.  I fed them with hot cocoa and warmed them up for a bit, but really, it was all pretty desperate.

 

Its a fake multi fuel stove.

 

With a fan heater incorporated.

 

Cross post.

4 minutes ago, jonathanA said:

I don't think it is a stove but actually one of those fan heaters and red bulb jobs

 

 

 

 

 

 

No think about it. It doesnt have a flue for a kick off.

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As a couple of people have indicated, really old Dawncrafts were plywood, but probably not after about 1970.

 

I  think like most 1960s plywood cruisers very few would still be surviving, (although I could omagin one in that huddle of cruisers at Charity Dock! 😃).

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1 hour ago, alan_fincher said:

As a couple of people have indicated, really old Dawncrafts were plywood, but probably not after about 1970.

 

I  think like most 1960s plywood cruisers very few would still be surviving, (although I could omagin one in that huddle of cruisers at Charity Dock! 😃).

 

Cue a long stream of posts by owners of restored 1960s plywood Dawncraft....

 

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Thanks all, I really needed reassurance and this did it! Concrete steps to take. Its all just a bit overwhelming when brand new and unexpected and not sure what Im looking at.

 

to solve the mystery, its a biofuel burner that runs off bioethanol which apparently burns clean and requires no flue, and its sits on ceramic. I have a bss until 2024 (although I imagine the biofuel stove was a recent addition). If anyone has opinions about liquid biofuel stoves Id love to hear them, as they seem pretty niche, and Im finding the fuel hard to come by!

 

And she’s from 1981, so pre ply.

 

While Im here, this will sound like a silly question Im sure, but does it matter if she seems to tilt a little to the stern end if the bilge pump is more towards the bow? Wont all my water just run to the back (where all my damp is?)

 

thanks, Its so great to have access to all this knowledge and experience 

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I think the technical term is "trims down by the stern" and in my experience most boats do. The most common exception is when an inboard engine has been taken out and replaced by a small outboard, or yachts that have a hull shape that tends to cause water to collect around the engine/under main cabin area.  Whether any water runs right to the back depends upon how any bulkheads have been fitted. If they sit on the top of, or above, the stringers I talked about, then water will run to the lowest point. If any bulkheads are fitted flush to the bottom of the boat, then they will stop water running back UNLESS they have limber holes (technical term) in the bottom to allow water through. Limber holes are often found to be blocked on older boats.

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Bioethanol fires cause significant problems in small areas. 

 

This is worth a read just so you know what the deal is. It is not a "wonder product". 

 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140903091728.htm

 

Summary:
Ethanol fireplaces are becoming more and more popular. However, they are not only  highly combustible -- in the past, severe accidents have occurred repeatedly with decorative fireplaces. The devices also pollute the air in the rooms.

Worth reading. It isn't full of tech speak. 

 

snippet 

 

" If the manufacturers are to be believed, the devices do not discharge any harmful combustible residues into the ambient atmosphere. A study by the Fraunhofer Institute for Wood Research WKI in Braunschweig indicates the opposite. “These stoves do not feature any guided exhaust system whatsoever, so all combustible products are released directly into the environment. Those are, for example, very fine combustion particles and gaseous compounds like formaldehyde and benzene. "

Edited by magnetman
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As someone who has lived on a Highbridge (snooty cousin of a Dawncraft) for 6 years as a comfortable home I feel fairly qualified to answer

 

Yep, they can leak, and yep that central "division" (called a bulkhead) is structural, but also you'll be fine. Boats and excessive worrying don't go together, for that reason my mum is banned from visiting...

 

Unless the wood is properly rotten it can probably be salvaged with "wood hardener" and plenty of good paint or varnish on top. This isn't the "rolls royce" solution but it's not a ¼ Million Crick winner, it's an affordable, usable liveaboard. 

 

GRP tends to "wriggle*" under fittings and things like windows that create leaks, it's to do with rates of expansion and slight moisture absorption. The best solution is to remove them and apply a flexible bedding sealant behind, the easy way is to use something like Capt Tolleys squirted around them to seal up leaks

 

Wooden box over the centre sounds a bit rubbish if I'm honest, they're expensive but consider a proper canopy, sheds are for gardens, not for boats.

 

And most of all relax and enjoy it, that's what boating is all about 

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51 minutes ago, harrybsmith said:

As someone who has lived on a Highbridge (snooty cousin of a Dawncraft) for 6 years as a comfortable home I feel fairly qualified to answer

 

Yep, they can leak, and yep that central "division" (called a bulkhead) is structural, but also you'll be fine. Boats and excessive worrying don't go together, for that reason my mum is banned from visiting...

 

Unless the wood is properly rotten it can probably be salvaged with "wood hardener" and plenty of good paint or varnish on top. This isn't the "rolls royce" solution but it's not a ¼ Million Crick winner, it's an affordable, usable liveaboard. 

 

GRP tends to "wriggle*" under fittings and things like windows that create leaks, it's to do with rates of expansion and slight moisture absorption. The best solution is to remove them and apply a flexible bedding sealant behind, the easy way is to use something like Capt Tolleys squirted around them to seal up leaks

 

Wooden box over the centre sounds a bit rubbish if I'm honest, they're expensive but consider a proper canopy, sheds are for gardens, not for boats.

 

And most of all relax and enjoy it, that's what boating is all about 

Wood hardener is probably one of the worst things to use on rotten wood. If wood has gone rotten it is because of a reason. Often because the wood has got wet and then cannot dry out. The wood hardener stops the wood from drying out. Have a look at wood in period houses. Lots of gen on there

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All the rotten stuff must come out and this is a depressing and horrible job as damp and rot tend to spread but it is the only way I'm afraid. If you can stop the water getting in then you will not have dry or wet rot spreading disastorously as they both need damp to grow although a good coat of Cuprinol or something over any dodgy looking old bits and new wood is very sensible, paint is not totally useless but very nearly so. In my opinion showers on a boat are a disaster, spend the money on ever stronger deodorant and find a friend with a house and use theirs. Try to make sure wood and ply never touch the bottom of the boat, it will soak up any damp. You do not need expensive marine ply, nor should you use places like B&Q to get timber, you can get better, cheaper, rotproofed 'Tanalised' timber from a timber yard, roofing supplier or a fencing supplier. Good luck, you are certainly not alone with these problems.

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