Bad Luck with Swedish Ralph Osborn Koster

[TeddyDiver]

It's not wood rot. It's freezed mahogany. Mahogany boat's gotto be on dry in good time before winter and cold.. Sorry..

[udo]

Originally Posted by TeddyDiver

It's not wood rot. It's freezed mahogany. Mahogany boat's gotto be on dry in good time before winter and cold.. Sorry..

Yep, been thinking of this one as well. However, then it's not just from this winter only! The place which is bad now, a wood chip broke out of the hull before the winter when we were washing the boat, when it was just lifted out of the water.

But on the other hand, a friend of mine told me that it is impossible to get mahogany boats perfectly dry even in 1 month of drying before it starts freezing. You can't scrape of all paint from the hull every year can you?

Thanks for any feedback, Udo

[TeddyDiver]

Originally Posted by udo

a friend of mine told me that it is impossible to get mahogany boats perfectly dry even in 1 month of drying before it starts freezing.

Most owners take them 3 months earlier to be on the safe side.. 1 month is too short time for sure especially without having blowers/dehumidifiers and such..

[udo]

Originally Posted by TeddyDiver

Most owners take them 3 months earlier to be on the safe side.. 1 month is too short time for sure especially without having blowers/dehumidifiers and such..

Teddy, that is exactly the problem here in Sweden: 3 month's is as long as our whole sailing season! Boats go into the water in May , June, July, August, September. We can expect frost in October, so I need to take the boat out of the water mid summer! guess nobody here in Sweden is doing that. Guess? No, I am sure, but 1 month is too short for sure.

Udo

[chris07732]

I'm astounded that the hull planks are so tightly fitted. To me, it's good news. If there was large scale fastener corrosion, the planks would be "working" as the boat flexed. Not seeing anything that shows that condition, I'm thinking you're dealing with a very localized condition.

Was the boat leaking at any of the places you've pictured? If not, I'm not sure you need to do much except refasten the exposed screws that seem bad and treat the damaged wood sections with "Git Rot" or something similar and repaint.

With a wood boat, if you look for something to fix, you will find it. If your intention is to maintain the boat in museum quality, maybe you want to refasten the entire hull, If you just want a beautiful wooden sailboat to use, I don't think you have to go that far. Having owned "several woodies", none of museum quality, refastening the hull is an awful lot of work.

[udo]

Hi Chris, indeed, I have seen many woodies and when i bought this one, I was amazed how tight the planks were!

here you can see galleries of all aspects of the hull:
Index of /01Images/Sweden-Sailing-Boats/2010/Koster-project-web

However, many forums members told me last year, I might have to inspect the stainless steel keelbolts by lowering the keel. Now I might have to combine that with checking the wood as well.

Leaking? Compared with other woodies not much, but not bone dry either.

I could see a very tiny little stream coming in from the bow / the front of the boat. Tiny little bit of water, but it was coming. and from the back. I suspected water not only coming from the propellor shaft, but also from underneath and that is exactly close to the area where i have the bad wood.

Coincidence? maybe not.

Indeed, it does not look as if I have everywhere fastener sickness. However try to understand what could have caused this bad part.

Frost? but then why not on places where the wood would be more wet? Like to lowest point in the bilge?

Fresh water? But the deck is new and the previous owner did a lot to avoid rainwater coming in from above.


Udo

[zeehag]

mahogany rots from inside to outside and gives out suddenly. it rots in both fresh AND SALT WATER AS WELL AS IN AIR. GOOOD LUCK. I WILLNOT USE MAHOGANY ON MY BOAT IF AT ALL POSSIBLE IN A STRUCTURAL POSITION. i have seen too many mahogany boats hit bottom as a result of this tendency to rot from inside to outside, while looking absolutely perfect. one of my neighbors nearly lost his boat from a mooring in a storm because he had a mahogany samson post rot in desert then on sea.. fair winds, and good luck.
makes a reAlly lovely trim , but as a structural wood--NO!!!!! AND I LOVE WOODEN BOATS.

[barnakiel]

OMG she is so gorgeous!

Looks very much like a Norlin Koster and being K25 she is identical with my own boat.

A friend of mine is a boatbuilder, he lives not far from Stockholm, if you have any problem judging how much repair and how to do it, PM me and I will ask him to email you.

Cheers,
barnie

[sdowney717]

Looking at those pictures is hard to see what caused it.
It could be gribbles, worms, or just the wood split.

It might be superficial not deep damage. If superficial, then fill it with either epoxy plus wood flour or better, polyurethane glue plus wood flour and sand smooth. I like the PL Premium polyurethane construction adhesive.

(polyurethane like this flex with the wood and wont ever crack or come off the wood. This glue is waterproof. If you use this glue it expands as it sets which is good so put a piece of plastic on the glue and keep it pressed down so it swells into all the cracks and fissures.)

If it runs deeper, then use a circular saw and chisel and cut out a surface section and glue and screw in a new piece of wood.

If it runs really deep you just have to cut out a bigger hole.

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, sdowney717.

[Swede57]

No idea if this of any help, but my cousin run Classic Yacht Service. He might be of help with advice. Www.cys.se

[udo]

Originally Posted by Swede57

No idea if this of any help, but my cousin run Classic Yacht Service. He might be of help with advice. Www.cys.se

Thanks to all for any feedback,

Still on the hunt for getting the right person to help,

Best regards,

Udo

[anglooff]

Udo

I have been away so have not had much chance to follow your unfortunate experiences. What is the current state of finding an experienced individual to assess your problem?

Regards

Alan

[udo]

Hello Alan,

I will get help from Phil, who I got to know via the wooden boat forum who is under the name DrSpoke on this forum and living not far away from me.
(Bad Luck? with my Swedish Ralph Osborn Koster)

Just a short description:
We decided to router out in a straight line all the bad wood from the plank ends, which are having frost damage. Put a plank on the inside on top of the stern post and connect the shortened plank ends to that. and insert on the outside a plank where we routered out the bad plank ends. It's like extending the dead wood.

This instead of cutting out the plank ends one by one.

Anyway, the boat is having frost damage, which seems to be a typical problem of the Swedish Koster Boats.

Previous owner must have known this, but simply ignored to tell me.

Fortunanely I will get some help from Phil, because on my own, it would be too difficult.

Here I have various galleries with images:

Index of /01Images/Sweden-Sailing-Boats/2010/Koster-project-web

and here you can see the damage I have got:
Koster close-ups

Site Title

Looks like that we get it fixed, but a boat with these problems would normally cost a lot less here in Sweden than what i paid.

Bad luck, but at least I get help and it seems we can get sailing this summer without getting the repair going above my budget.

Udo

[udo]

So, we finally did bite the bullet and decided what to do:

Take away the bad stuff and take in in stages what to do.

Here are images from the first stage:

and I love it to take all the bad wood away!

renew some planking

Udo