Of Worms and CPES and Death and Such

[Ted Chism]

I ran this out a few days ago but as a response to my own first posting and not as a new post and didn't get any responces. Quite possibly everyone is sick of the dicussion at this point. So I am trying it as a new post to see what happens. I am new to this and not high tech inclined - better with a lead line than a GPS.

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Thanks for the welcome etc. Sorry that I can't do photos at this time because I dont have access to a digital camera. But soon as I do and figure out how to use the thing I'll lay em on you. I am fundamentally a low tech guy who would rather be in the garden or on the water rather than at a computer.

The first question I have is about CPES, and I know you folks are tired of this stuff, but let me describe my situation first. I live on a tidal estuary on the central Oregon coast and am lucky enough to have my own dock. This is great, but it dries out twice a day. I can never really understand where all that water actually goes, but it does. So my sharpie is going to be on the mud twice a day. For this reason I am doubling up the stringers and using a double planked botton - two layers of one inch Port Offord Cedar. But no matter how strong I build her; the worms don't really care. And since she is taking the bottom (pretty soft mud) twice a day not only is that likely to abuse what ever bottom paint I use but is also going to serve as worm delivery system because I understand that the little suckers live down in that stuff. What to do, what to do.

I am building upside down - the hull, not me - and am considering several options. One is to just soak the exterior layer of planking in Irish Blood untill it just can't take it any more and then start with the lindseed oil and pine tar version untill it is seriously saturated. If and when it dries out sufficiently, paint it.

Option number two is to CPES the hell out of the exterior hull with the same level of dedication as above, and paint it.

Option number three - and these are graded in terms of chemical commitment - is to use epoxy and cloth to cover the bottom up to the water line. There - I've said it.

OK. My questions are about protection from worms vs. overdoing it and causing massive rot problems in the future. For starters, will the CPES method provide much if any worm deterant. Does it soak in enough and provide a hard enough layer so the little buggers can't get their fangs into it. I read recently on the forum that it does not trap water soaking down from the bilge and therefore should not cause a rot problem that way. If the CPES does provide sufficient worm protection then I wouldn't bother with the more drastic epoxy approach. I know that old boats are occasionally given one form or another of epoxy applications to prolong their life, but I haven't heard of this being done on a new plank on frame boat. Especially on cedar which will do some moving when the water gets to it. And it will. I really don't want to get into the whole saturation thing - this is a traditional work boat and I want to keep it simple.

Don't want to stir up any bad blood with this CPES thing, but this type of thing has been on my little mind a lot lately, and I would appreciate any and all advice from the more experienced.

Thanks,

Ted

[Stiletto]

If your boat is taking the mud and not the mud with rocks poking through I dont see the need for doubling up on your bottom timber, or are the outer planks sacrificial to the worms?

I have lived and boated around muddy tidal inlets and epoxy/glass was the best thing for that environment, but my boats had ply bottoms.

Traditionally built boats with just a small break in their antifoul became hosts to worms in short order in that environment.

Regarding CPES, click on the search button and read the many posts on the subject and form your own opinions. I dont recall it being promoted as an anti worm treatment.

Maybe the building of a grid to support your boat in your mud berth could minimise the amount of contact the mud would have with her bottom.

If you decided to epoxy/glass the bottom you would need to glass the inside too, to prevent stress problems with the expansion of the timbers from water uptake.

For treating bare timber I have used a product called Metalex which is copper napthalene in turps. It is an effective rot preventative. I thinkCuprinol is a similar product.

My 2c worth, Good Luck!

[Ted Chism]

Thanks for the input. One of the options I was thinking about was to build some kind of simple rack that would hold the hull up off of the bottom a bit. But then I am going to be scraping the bottom paint off on the rack every time it's blowing a bit when the tide is running. I was also thinking about copper sheeting, which would be relatively easy to do on a flat bottom hull, untill the price of copper went through the roof.

[JohnPlatou]

Why not just put it on a lift.

http://www.aerialimaging.net/johnpics11

[outofthenorm]

Expense aside, copper sheathing is as far as I know the only proven, long term, low-tech and bullet-proof bug deterrent. Worked for the British navy. Other than that, for a boat that grounds out, epoxy and glass sounds like the way to go. I can't imagine any paint alone that would hold up. What's the price difference between copper and epoxy?

Oh, and what the heck is Irish Blood?

- Norm

[Ted Chism]

Again, thanks for the input, guys. (So how come there don't appear to be any women involved with this forum - what's with that anyway.)

I think a lift would be more complex than I want to get into. But I am going to look more into copper sheathing although I was told by my local marine supply the other day that the price has gone up 50% since the first of the year. Course everything else is going up at the same time including epoxy and bottom paint, and at least according to theory copper is a one time deal.

Norm, Irish Blood is another name for Green Death which is another name for Penta - the green wood perservative.

[Gary E]

This story is like listing to a bank robber tell how he's gona rob Ft Knox of all the gold and he's asking for what kinda armor to wear....

Buy an ALUMINUM BOAT

[Charles Burgess]

Copper sheathing is the best solution. If you try to use bottom paint you'll spend more to get the same amount of protection.

[Dave Carnell]

When I rebuilt my 1964 Simmons Sea-Skiff it had not been fiberglassed. The boat was going to live in the water and ground on the mud at every ebb tide of the NC creek I live on. The worms here are voracious - riddled a boat I was protecting with copper bottom paint. I fiberglassed the bottom up to the top of the bottom side plank with one layer of 6oz. cloth set in epoxy resin. Thw boat was relaunched in 1976 and there is no worm attack. I have had to use high-qualty ablative copper bottom paint to fend off the sea squirts, barnacles, and other beasties that grow profusely in our warm waters.

There is no need to fiberglass the inside or epoxy encapsulate. Nothing keeps water out so save your time and money.

[Ted Chism]

Again, thanks for the input. At this point I think what I will do is to lay down a couple of 16' railroad ties that I have that came out of the ways of a local boat yard and anchor them down parallel to the dock with pier blocks. Probably cover them with indoor/outdoor carpet. This will keep me up off of the mud except for the aft end of the keel, and I may put some sort of worm shoe on that.

Dave, I am intrigued by your description of glassing the bottom of your boat but not encapsulating the wood from both sides. West Bros and others say this is bad move, but if it is working for you that's great. I will probably post a thread on this to see if others have had similar success.

[Tom Hunter]

My dory was built with the bottom glassed but no glass inside the hull. That was 10 years ago, and though she is getting a bit old and beat up it has not caused any serious problems. She has been sitting on mud twice a day for 10 summers in New England and no worms yet.

Some years ago I moved to a cove with more rocks so I put on thicker fiberglass but that is about all I have done to the bottom. I do paint it every year to keep the barnacles off.

I she has one plank for a bottom. I think that helps because it means she is either wet or dry but never damp for long. If you choose to double bottom your sharpie I would be concerned about water working its way into the space between the two bottoms and causeing rot. But if you single bottom the boat and glass it I think you will be ok as long as the boat gets filled and dried (by rain and pumping, the way mine does) rather than sitting around damp.

[Tristan]

The kind of worms (actually they are molluscs) that eat wood, Teredo, etc., arrive via a planktonic larval stage, not from the mud. Yes, there are many species of worms in the mud, but not wood eating worms. I agree though that sheathing the bottom with copper could be a great thing to do. I have a friend who built a 65 foot dory schooner, sheathed the bottom with copper, and NEVER hauled his boat (over a 20 year period). He bedded the copper in roofing tar. A few years ago he hauled his boat (first time) and had it trucked to his house inland to work on the deck. When the trucking co. put it up on blocks tiny oozes of tar squeezed out of the seam where the bottom copper joined the side copper. It was still soft!