Happy New Year again Seabreezers
need some advice on two issues. Have attached some photos as, well, pictures say a thousand words and my explaining is not very good.
1. The gunwales on my boat are timber, glassed over and gelcoated. The starboard side is in pretty good shape, however, some of the port side is damaged. The timber is rotten and the gelcoat and glass have come away. It has been covered over in areas with some kind of filler - car bog? spakfilla? - crumbles away under the touch of a screwdriver.
One of the long-term plans was to replace the old fibreglass-enclosed gunwale with a natural timber strip. Due to the rot present, I may have to consider doing it sooner rather than later. My question is, considering what little you guys can determine from the photos, how difficult and/or expensive a project does this pose??
2. Okay, now this is hard to explain. The fibreglass in the bilge under the cabin sole enclosing the keel is soggy...as in, above the keel. It is not shiny, smooth like a resin finish, it is not painted/flowcoated. It is simply rovings that seem not to have had enough resin applied to seal and make it 'fibreglass'.
My Folkboat is bone dry in this part of the bilge (she gets water in the bilge area underneath the cockpit), however, I still don't feel good about this 'soggy' look and feel.
Suggestions? Resin? How do I exhume the moisture beforehand???
Thanks for your help
Trace 
Its hard to visualize gunwales by the photos you have here . But to me as its summer up there and sailing weather .Id patch it till winter if you can may be removed the rotten part and add new timber there and epoxy over the top as a temp measure and keep sailing if it is sea worthy enough. and then deal with the problem as you also need to dry out your keel area.
The keel area
Is it moist or dry there and the glass was layed with not enough resin ? could the previous owner covered some thing up or patch that keel area
Is the keel part of the hull on the folk boat ? I think they are
I would be inclined to kill the rot in the gunwales with antifreeze concentrate. Just soak it in for a couple of days. When dry coat with a wood preservative or epoxy thinned mixture to give it some strength. After that I would just use a body filler and reconstruct the shape and finish off with a matching paint. Dig out the obviously soft stuff first.
forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?93045-Anti-rot-Use-of-Polyethylene-Glycol
Not sure about the keel area but it looks like water has got between what ever is under that fibreglass. From the photo it looks like a stringer so it could be timber or foam.
Thanks Hg and Ramona
heading down to the boat now to look some more and contemplate 
Kind regards
Trace
I didn't like reading that Selkie. You will certainly get all the best advice on this forum. I hope it all works out OK.
Select to expand quoteRamona said..
I would be inclined to kill the rot in the gunwales with antifreeze concentrate. Just soak it in for a couple of days. When dry coat with a wood preservative or epoxy thinned mixture to give it some strength. After that I would just use a body filler and reconstruct the shape and finish off with a matching paint. Dig out the obviously soft stuff first.
forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?93045-Anti-rot-Use-of-Polyethylene-Glycol
Not sure about the keel area but it looks like water has got between what ever is under that fibreglass. From the photo it looks like a stringer so it could be timber or foam.
I think Ramona has a good plan Silkie 
Select to expand quotetheselkie said..
Thanks Hg and Ramona
heading down to the boat now to look some more and contemplate
Kind regards
Trace
perhaps a drill hole in the keel section just to see whats lurking below just a short depth if you cant seem to find exactly whats happening and it can be glassed and filled later
Yep Sam, I know if there is help, it will be found here.
Down at the boat 'contemplating'. Just feel like a helpless newborn with all this stuff. Can't quite reconcile the fact my late dad was quite an engineering/diy/inventor genius! Although he wasn't good at imparting his knowledge...especially to girl children 
Oh well, I'll varnish the handrails. See how that works out haha
Good idea Hg...
I'll do some investigating.
Theselkie, I've renovated two boats from floating wrecks back to their market value. Including re-powering, re rigging and heaps of repairing crook woodwork and glassing. That's standard for older boats.
My suggestions:
1. Dont panic.
2. Dont view the whole boat as a huge job. It can be broken into lesser jobs.
3. Find the crook bit that worries you the most. Not to big a bit.
4. Search the NET for all about how to fix only that small bit and then do it. There's heaps of good advice.
5. Then do the next small bit. If you do it this way you can use the boat while you are renovating it.
6. Dont start all the repair jobs at once! I saw various boaties do that, then find they couldnt use the boat, then give up. Just do bit at a time.
I found with the rotten timber etc. the only way to go was cut it all out back to the structural members and replace it properly. Also surprisingly I found summer hot days the best time to work. Not for comfort. But the timber etc is dry and cuts out easily. Any epoxy you put in sets fast too. I found a 12V "Multi-tool" was great for that, but I wired it to the boats batteries. The LiIon ones they come with are not enough for a whole days work.
I even replaced the steering system completely in one boat, that was forced on me because it broke while out on the water and when the water police saw me going around in circles they came and towed me home. The scary thing about them was I didnt know the steering cables had been bodgied together by a previous owner and I had sailed miles with them like that including right through the middle of a S2H spectator fleet!
Tracy you might get some info from this article on stopping rot in timber
www.norglass.com.au/file_download/25/STOP_ROT_INFO.PDF
Good advice Trek, one job at a time, do it right, do it once. Don't start the next job till the first one is done.
Fibreglass is easy to repair with epoxy. Sometimes starting is the hardest part.
If it is soft dig it out, just don't dig a hole through the hull
Select to expand quoteandy59 said..
Good advice Trek, one job at a time, do it right, do it once. Don't start the next job till the first one is done.
Fibreglass is easy to repair with epoxy. Sometimes starting is the hardest part.
If it is soft dig it out, just don't dig a hole through the hull
As Andy said if you can do one job at a time it works out better. For me it was going to be like that but found I needed to do some thine else first.
But that's just me.
Ive 12 months to finish her maybe a little longer. Try your best to focus on one job at a time if you can Make your list and then number the priorities first and get those done.
My way of thinking was as long as its done before I retire.
Hi guys
thanks so much for your encouragement and technical advice. I truly appreciate it.
It's a steep learning curve restoring the boat and, yes, I do have the propensity to not finish one task before starting another. However, I am mindful of it and try and steel myself from having fingers in too many pies at once. 'The List' is long - as lists are wont to be - and it is constantly being added to. Nothing special there! I'm no Robinson Crusoe in the boat-ownership stakes .
I've sailed her finally and made a start on the restoration. Considering the dark abyss I fell into last year, this is a miracle! In the midst of that darkness, I listed my Folkboat for sale. However, when prospective purchasers started coming forward - one man so enamoured with my boat, he alluded to "...name your price..." - I couldn't do it. I couldn't let her go! After all, she's had a pretty crappy time of it as well! As a pet needs a forever home, I bought this boat with the very specific intent of her being my 'forever boat'.
I agree it's important to ensure the boat remains usable during the restoration - as one of you guys mentioned 
. As well as working on her, I want to get out and sail her...have some play time 
. Remember why I bought her!!
Amidst today's contemplating, I did manage to get the first coat of varnish on the hand rails successfully!! then proceeded to drop my prescription sunnies into the container of varnish. In the mad scurry to pour turps over the sunglasses into a waiting bucket, upended said bucket and polluted first my cockpit thence the waterway with about 200ml of turps. I'm just your local walking, talking environmental disaster ggggggrrrrrrrrr 
One of the first jobs on The List is to get a sound system. This is urgent! Triple J cannot be trusted for any more than two or three songs at a time before it descends into rap crap!! I do believe I am getting old and grumpy ....I need my own music!!
Thanks again Seabreezers and thanks in advance...as there will be loads more questions asked 
Select to expand quotetheselkie said..
Hi guys
One of the first jobs on The List is to get a sound system. This is urgent! Triple J cannot be trusted for any more than two or three songs at a time before it descends into rap crap!! I do believe I am getting old and grumpy ....I need my own music!!
The silent "C" in rap is assumed
Select to expand quotetheselkie said..
Hi guys
thanks so much for your encouragement and technical advice. I truly appreciate it.
It's a steep learning curve restoring the boat and, yes, I do have the propensity to not finish one task before starting another. However, I am mindful of it and try and steel myself from having fingers in too many pies at once. 'The List' is long - as lists are wont to be - and it is constantly being added to. Nothing special there! I'm no Robinson Crusoe in the boat-ownership stakes .
I've sailed her finally and made a start on the restoration. Considering the dark abyss I fell into last year, this is a miracle! In the midst of that darkness, I listed my Folkboat for sale. However, when prospective purchasers started coming forward - one man so enamoured with my boat, he alluded to "...name your price..." - I couldn't do it. I couldn't let her go! After all, she's had a pretty crappy time of it as well! As a pet needs a forever home, I bought this boat with the very specific intent of her being my 'forever boat'.
I agree it's important to ensure the boat remains usable during the restoration - as one of you guys mentioned . As well as working on her, I want to get out and sail her...have some play time . Remember why I bought her!!
Amidst today's contemplating, I did manage to get the first coat of varnish on the hand rails successfully!! then proceeded to drop my prescription sunnies into the container of varnish. In the mad scurry to pour turps over the sunglasses into a waiting bucket, upended said bucket and polluted first my cockpit thence the waterway with about 200ml of turps. I'm just your local walking, talking environmental disaster ggggggrrrrrrrrr
One of the first jobs on The List is to get a sound system. This is urgent! Triple J cannot be trusted for any more than two or three songs at a time before it descends into rap crap!! I do believe I am getting old and grumpy ....I need my own music!!
Thanks again Seabreezers and thanks in advance...as there will be loads more questions asked
Dear Selkie,
With the greatest respect to your good self, you put a smile on my face reading that! There are some days when I think that some higher authority just screws with us mere humans just out of sheer malice or boredom or whatever.
Perseverance is key mate, and you seem to have that in you, the harder it gets, the more rewarding the result when you finally nail it. The fact you didn't sell her,and I am assuming you knew this wasn't going to be an easy ride, shows you are deserving of the title of owner, captain and sailor.
So when it feels like you are not worthy or good enough, just remember that generations of infamous, and unknown, seafarers would stand, give you a quiet nod, and offer you a seat at their table, according you the respect borne from achieving that title alone.
Take a bow Tracie, you deserve it to have got to where you are now, be proud of the challenges you have already surmounted and those you are undertaking, and above all (not that I need to tell you by the sounds of it), fight like a demon against all the odds life throws at you... and never give up.
SB
Good to hear your listening to Triple J, but I know what you mean about the rap.
Number 1 priorities has to be stereo, cant work on a boat without music.
Lots of good advice but I think trek is on the money about doing some repairs in summer.
Drying wood and fiberglass out is...imo...half the battle in any repair job.
Do one gunwale first....see how it goes...learn and than try the other. But its got to be fully dried out or you can just be glassing more trouble in
Select to expand quotetheselkie said..
One of the first jobs on The List is to get a sound system. This is urgent! Triple J cannot be trusted for any more than two or three songs at a time before it descends into rap crap!! I do believe I am getting old and grumpy ....I need my own music!!
Download your own music onto your mobile and buy the waterproof bluetooth speaker Whitworths has for $50. If your phone has not bluetooth you can still plug into the speaker with 3.5 mm stereo cable.
Select to expand quotecisco said..theselkie said..
One of the first jobs on The List is to get a sound system. This is urgent! Triple J cannot be trusted for any more than two or three songs at a time before it descends into rap crap!! I do believe I am getting old and grumpy ....I need my own music!!
Download your own music onto your mobile and buy the waterproof bluetooth speaker Whitworths has for $50. If your phone has not bluetooth you can still plug into the speaker with 3.5 mm stereo cable.
+1, wouldnt bother with a "fixed" install. technology has moved on.
Just spend $25 on a Chinese car radio with USB and an SD card slot. copy your mp3's and play through some Salvation army bookshelfs!
Hello all
thanks for addressing the music issues. Something will be sorted very soon but, ahem, Donk, it won't be a unit like yours. I know Tassie is a quiet little place, but you're not really that far behind the times are you?? By the way, do you still play tapes in that thing???
And thank you Shaggy for your encouragement and words of wisdom. I found myself very emotional reading your message. You seem to have the uncanny knack of just 'getting it' on so many levels. After much ado, I finally feel validated. I am eternally grateful for that gift.
And you're right....I knew this was not going to be an easy ride. There's been a succession of boats throughout my life from my Sabot, Moth, Dad's Hood 20 and Triton 721, my Sunmaid 20, Cal34, foray across to the Dark Side with a Crowther 32, and now, reborn with the Folkboat. The difference back then was, I was a daughter or a wife. I had schoolwork to do or young children to care for while either my late father or my husband (ex) did the lion's share of the maintenance on our boats. Having said that, though, I mucked in where I could, and that included annual out of water stuff. No division of labour there....dawn to dusk...filthy, exhausting...time on the hard is money. Rhetorical....we all know that . My point is I had no romantic illusions.
I really like Nic Douglass' Adventures of a Sailor Girl. Nic is the kind of girl I would like to have been as a young thing - gorgeous, fit, bubbly, competent, confident, socially capable. I am the absolute antithesis of Nic! I'm old, grumpy (just ask me about MY music!!); AND I have developed a transom the width of, well, the width of a Pogos'!! I reckon I could do Misadventures of a Sailor Girl! You see, it's not only disasters with dropping sunglasses in varnish then upending buckets of Turps that I have orchestrated. Oh no, dear reader.
My little Folkie has delicious tan vinyl upholstery on the inside of the cabin ...original....straight out of 1977 when she was built. Complete with 39 years of mould spores spreading throughout the funky pattern!! Wanting to keep her original, envisaging fondue parties, free love and psychadelic drugs ...okay, not really, it's just I can't afford to remove the vinyl for the time being....I set about cleaning the upholstery with a spray-on bleach-based product. The boat was open with what I thought, plenty of air flow. I had only completed behind one settee berth before my eyes and nose were burning; coughing madly; and feeling downright ill. That little episode ended in a smokers-like cough and shortness of breath which lasted for weeks.
Then another time, I go down just to sand one handrail. (You see, I steal little bits of time away from my daughters and the boat is only 5 minutes from home hehe 
) It's warm, but I don't feel that hot. I'm sunscreened on all the usual places. I ignore the fact that my t-shirt has ridden up at the back and I am sustaining what turns into being a very, very nasty stripe of sunburnt flesh. Mmm,,, what is that smell?? So, one last little job before I pack up. Just want to try out the Oxalic Acid crystals and water mixture to see how it brings the timber up. There's no tap on the pontoon, so I walk up to the side of the house, fill the bucket, and suddenly I am overcome by this crushing sensation of my skull. I'm not sure whether I'm having a stroke, heart attack, I'm going to faint, or just drop dead. I don't have my phone. No-one's at the house. I'm a bit bloody scared actually. I wonder whether my girls will be worried? I lie down on the patio at the back of the house for a good fifteen minutes and I'm okay...not great, but okay. I pack up quickly, go home and, my body so exhausted from my little turn, fall into a deep sleep for a couple of hours. When I wake, it's 5.30ish in the evening. I confess what happened to my eldest daughter. I ask her sheepishly whether she and her sister would have come looking for me. She looks at the clock, notices the time, and says, "yeah, well, it's getting on for dinner time, so we would have come looking". She was wearing a smile as she said it 
Object of my desire
Keep the vinyl. It's lasted that long already. I recovered all my bunks in marine vinyl. Same stuff as I used in my fishing vessel. It lasted 25 years there unmarked from deckhands sleeping fully booted and spurred. It's easy to sew and easy to clean. Not so good on bare skin on a hot day.
Best thing for mould removal is clove oil... The blaeach base stuff doesn't kill the actual spore and it keeps coming back
Select to expand quoteRamona said..
Keep the vinyl. It's lasted that long already. I recovered all my bunks in marine vinyl. Same stuff as I used in my fishing vessel. It lasted 25 years there unmarked from deckhands sleeping fully booted and spurred. It's easy to sew and easy to clean. Not so good on bare skin on a hot day.
Hi Ramona, despite me taking the p..ss out of my upholstery, I actually don't mind the vinyl, however, my tastes are a little quirky. The cabin lining has come up really well and the bunk cushions too. I was marvelling how well they resemble leather after I had cleaned them. So, stay they will, for the foreseeable future anyway Select to expand quoteDAMA said..
Best thing for mould removal is clove oil... The blaeach base stuff doesn't kill the actual spore and it keeps coming back
Hi DAMA, I actually used clove oil in my previous boat with not that great effect. I am considering experimenting with a solution containing ethylene glycol antifreeze - as per Ramona's advice for my gunwale problem. Select to expand quoteRamona said..
I would be inclined to kill the rot in the gunwales with antifreeze concentrate. Just soak it in for a couple of days. When dry coat with a wood preservative or epoxy thinned mixture to give it some strength. After that I would just use a body filler and reconstruct the shape and finish off with a matching paint. Dig out the obviously soft stuff first.
forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?93045-Anti-rot-Use-of-Polyethylene-Glycol
Not sure about the keel area but it looks like water has got between what ever is under that fibreglass. From the photo it looks like a stringer so it could be timber or foam.
