Leaks & Tweets

Rain having very much stopped play for the last week or so, we have been hunkering down in the boat to wait out the bad weather.  But even minding your own business a lot can happen about the place - Mum accidentally decapitated our chimney after a gust of wind caught a ladder, one of our cats has mites clustering on her absurdly luxurious ears, and the long-standing problem of the tide quite literally coming in got a bit worse.

With an unusual amount of trickling and for want of a better word squirting coming from under one of the bunks, we took the top off and found something that made us rather uneasy.


A look down into the ancient-looking parts of the boat that are ever present beneath the relatively modern woodwork.

Below is a more bird's eye view - using my brilliant picture editing skills I have circled the issue, a rotten part of the wood that is
letting water seep in. 

The light brown gash at the right is where it's emanating from.

Here is a short video to show it in action:

Watch here

Fortunately this only appeared to be a small section but it is a source of confusion to us - the salt water should be preserving the wood, so the cause of the rot is anyone's guess at present.  This leak had to be held back as a matter of urgency, and there was a surprisingly simple solution for this.

In this unnecessarily moodily-lit shot, I have cut a section of foam rubber into a conveniently-sized cube.  We have a big supply that was intended for use as seat cushions, but this never happened, and it now takes a more practical role bunging up leaks.

All we have to do is push it in and give it a poke with an implement, taking care not to jab the wood itself.  Though wooden boats are much trickier to protect against water, as they are lots of planks tarred together rather than a self-contained hull, you can plug things up using anything from an old t-shirt (or in one emergency situation the new one off my back) to towels (evidence of which can be seen top left of shot).  I still envy the owners of metal barges and canal boats, who can put a shoe or something over a hole when it appears!

Here is a further image of the underfloor area.



A mighty section of metal ballast helps prop up the floorboards.  As mentioned,
much of our stone ballast is on deck, removed so we could investigate leaks.  Hopefully we
will be able to put it back there soon.  Also there are the frames forming the ribcage of
the boat, coated in creek mud.  Oh and my Mum's shoe, which she uses to clean the carpet
(don't ask).


In a previous posting I talked about tingles, sections of lead that can be nailed onto problem seams.  Here is one I exhumed, caked in muck.  Once attached, one of these can hold the water at bay for approximately a year.

On a more contemporary note, I am now on Twitter.  Actually I joined around 2 years ago but couldn't get my head around it - however, I am now on better terms with it, and will be Tweeting details of blog updates on there.  Do follow me if you feel inclined -

Twitter Link

Deck & Duck

The deck painting is now underway, and here is a picture of the inaugural splash. 

Mum opted for grey with a hint of blue for a pretty appearance, whereas I favoured a military grey that hides all the dirt.  I think her idea is better, though of course it's been covered in scuff marks within minutes.  It's nothing some sea water and a brush won't fix.  Although a fair amount of fresh water is applied to the deck - mainly for the purpose of scrubbing off bird plop, and at this time of year it's blackberry-infused bird plop - you are really supposed to wash everything with salt water as it's much better for the wood.  The fireglass covering should protect it, but as mentioned previously it's not infallible, and during really rainy periods you see the wetness trapped under the surface.

I am also posting our first video, which is of our hull.  Ostensibly it's in order to show you the amount of dilapidation, but if you're not into that sort of thing there is also a duck that frequents our part of the creek looking for morsels.  He has a colouring on his face that makes him look like he has crazy eyes, and when he strayed into view I took the opportunity to get some footage of him mooching about near the other boats.

Watch here...

We get quite a few ducks around us, and as with our cats we seem to have created a monster by the amount of feeding we do.  Mum gives them seeds and moist supermarket dreg brand bread twice a day. So do a few other people by the looks of it as some of them are becoming rather plump. 

I don't partake in the fowl feast, but it's gotten to the stage where if anyone appears on deck there is a chorus of quacking, as the ducks frantically demand their dinner.  It's interesting to sit there watching them pecking at each other to defend their territory, and the view of a dozen of them spatula'ing through the mud with their beaks with a tremendous squelching is a sight to behold. 

The ducklings get a lot of attention from the boat owners - sadly quite a few of them are lost to various forces of nature, but those that flourish grow within weeks.  I will write a post about the wildlife we have around us at some point, as it varies from seagulls (who always descend out of nowhere with a screech whenever any bread is thrown) to the occasional seal! 
 

Seams & Sawdust

Work clearing the deck continues - I've always been a clutter man more than a minimalist, but seeing lots of space where you thought there wasn't any can't help but put you in a positive frame of mind.
 

The stanchions are seeing a fresh coat of paint for the first time in at least two years.

After the recent bouts of rain the planks appeared to have expanded and the water level in the bilge became greatly reduced.  It was looking like we were going to be able to leave the pump to run unattended overnight.  However, the resurgent heat appears have put us back in the direction of square one, with things  becoming eerily quiet in the engine room as the pump is gradually submerged...

Here we see the top of the pump & accompanying float switch under the water, handily framed by the sun pouring in through the engine room hatch.  The oil swirls to the left should give you an idea of the depth.  The submerged pump is mains-operated, but above the swirls is one of our battery-powered pumps, connected by jump leads to a leisure battery out of shot. 

Last time I mentioned how we were going to use sawdust to solve a problem with the boat. 

Well, here's the bag, & this is what we're going to do with it.   Now I should be honest & say I'm not entirely sure how this is going to work, but the principle is fairly sound.  We will attach the bag to ropes and dangle it over the side, getting it into a position where it is roughly aligned with the problem seam near the bottom under the water.  The bag will then be split with a long poking device (I'm thinking a broom handle with a Stanley knife taped to the end), releasing the sawdust, which will then apparently rush into the seam and block up the gaps.  This traditional technique is intended as a temporary solution, but if it works will give us some much-needed respite. 

There have been attempts in the past to stop the water mounting up by "tingling", which is the nailing of small sections of lead onto the wood beneath the floor, but these have only ever prevented small leaks.  The main one that's causing all the trouble is hopefully the seam, though this has only ever been a theory on our part.

We were advised to employ "the sawdust trick" by someone with a lot of experience, and one of the things about seeking such advice is you will hear contradictory things from different people.  So a sure fire solution from one person will be met by tutting and rolled
eyes from the next.  Boat people are notoriously inconsistent in that sense - we have been recommended everything from squirting builders' foam into the seam to tacking plywood to the outside.  These all appear to be perfectly valid approaches, but it's the one approach we want, and hopefully a simple bag of sawdust will prove to be a big step forward.