Kimball's Babe Fifteen -Rot

This is the boat when we arrived back in the beginning of May.  We thought we would come in paint, add closets and storage space and move in.  But we found


rust

and more rust.

It is normal each spring to find that the nails and bolts have rusted through the paint.  so we dug out the nails, cleaned them, put epoxy over them and painted a primer paint over them; we shined the bolts and put a rust prime paint over them.
Around the stern we found some rust too and open area we needed to seal.
That included cleaning and rust proof primer on the inside too.  All normal preparations for painting.The nails and bolts in the cockpit area also needed clean and primed.
But then we found the rot....
It was across the entire bow,

in both corners of the v-berth,

around both port and starboard windows
along the pilot house doors
and the center windshield.
This is under the front bow where we had to dry it out.

The locker area before the holes were put in.

Will removed the rotting deck board.

The ceiling area where the water has gotten behind itThe ceiling filled with wood filler before painting.

The rot wood from the door sill.

The port side corner.Dried, filled and ready to paint.

Rot has to be delt with or it will continue to grow; it is a fungus.  So we cleaned each area pulling away the rotting wood. Then the area had to be dried out.  Sometimes that meant drilling holes into the wood to dry it through.
This is an area in the locker that is cleaned and drying.  We sometimes used a hair dryer, but more often brought in our little electric heater and put it on fan.

The next step is "GetRot" an expensive product that is to filter into the wood and kill off the fungus.  Then the epoxy can be put on.  There are a few different epoxies we use.  a dry one that has two parts that  get kneaded together until the color is uniform then it is put into place.  Another is a liquid that has to be mixed and put on with a brush; the brush hardens after use so we have used several boxes of bushes already!.  The other way is to fiberglass the area: put on the liquid epoxy followed by a fiberglass cloth and other layer of liquid.  The we use a wood filler to smooth over the are before we paint.

This area is filled with the putty epoxy.

On the hull below the waterline we used an expensive sealant to fill any holes we found.
Except this hole; it was too big.  We cleaned out the rotten wood, dried the are and put in putty epoxy.  Then Will added custom fit wood pieces before adding more putty; we plan to also add a wooden plate over it for added stability.
The inside of the starboard slide window we found it damp and rotting.



Rot along the floor in the pilot house.

Along the baseboard of the bulkheads.More rot in the corner below the bulkhead.This area under the bulkhead has been dried and epoxied.

The exposed ceiling area drying out.

The area to the left of the port side window.

After we painted the hull we found two large areas where the paint didn't stick, but formed bubbles; we removed the paint and sealed the areas.  Epoxy is our friend so we put epoxy, primed and painted again.

The port side corner getting some putty epoxy.  Each step takes time to dry.

The windshield area got a bead of sealant after it dried out.
The area just inside the door of the pilot house on the port side all cleaned, dried, epoxied, fiberglassed and ready for painting.  This has been a learning experience, but I thing we are getting the hang of dealing with rotting wood and have been taking care of it when we find it.  And so the painting has taken much much longer than we anticipated, but now, a month behind schedule, we are starting to think the other aspects we need to get finished before we set to the sea in July.  Time is ticking away.  All part of the journey....