gas that kills dry rot (spores?)

[rebel heart]

I'm going to bag and gas my wooden mast to kill of some termites, and was advised that there's a gas I can ask for that will kill dry rot as well, even the spores I heard. So I was wondering if anyone knew what that was, or could educate me a bit?

I called the termite company and was quoted $400 - $500 to bag/gas, and they told me to use copper-stuff and pour it through one and and drain it out the other. Doesn't sound very feasible.

[Boracay]

I doubt if termites like salt water.

Don't think dry rot (mould/yeast?) likes it much either.

[Chief Engineer]

Why would you attempt to use a termite ridden mast?

Just curious

[Alan Wheeler]

The Gas would most likely be Methyl Bromide. But you wouldn't get me near the the stuff. $500 to gas the mast would be cheap in my books. Its deadly stuff and only professionals should play with it.
But as Boracay said, Saltwater will kill both.

[rebel heart]

I'm not getting saltwater on the spruce. I'd have to soak it, and then I'd have salt crystals keeping everything damp.

"Termite ridden" is a bit of an overstatement.

I've been spending a lot of time with masts lately. I never thought I'd say it, but I'm getting more and more partial to wood. You can see what it's doing, and there's a long time between a visible problem and a rig failure. With aluminum, it's all over in a fraction of a second, and most stress fractures have no visible signs.

After I do these repairs to the wooden mast, I'll probably switch to aluminum in a few years when I redo my stays and shrouds. But I get it now why wooden masts worked so well for so long.

[GordMay]

Fumigations are carried out using essentially two chemicals: Vikane Gas Fumigant (Sulfuryl Fluoride), and Methyl Bromide. Vikane is usually held in the structure for approximately 16-30 hours.
The California Department of Pesticide Regulation has initiated new procedural regulations ,that have made the use of Methyl Bromide fumigant extremely impractical and costly.

See the info’ from University of California ANR Publication 7440:
Drywood Termites Management Guidelines--UC IPM

[mudnut]

Long time between a visable problem and a rig failure.Hmmm..Ya need to napalm ya mast.Hmmm.."so,how long before the rig failure?".Sounds like ya have ya visual.Hey,what do I know.Mudnut.

[ssullivan]

I don't know how extensive your drywood termite problem is, but if it's small... here's a technique I was able to use to get rid of them in my head vanity fixture:

1) Locate all the galleries(rooms termites make for themselves) - I found, at least in my case, that where there were galleries, there were some kind of "water stains" on the outer layer of the plyood laminate. This helped me to figure out where the galleries were.

2) Go to Home Depot and get "Spectracide Termite Killing Foam"

3) Take a small drill bit (just big enough to stick the little, red WD-40-like straw from the termite poison can into), and drill many *many* holes into the wood where there are galleries set up. Try and get at least one hole for each gallery you can imagine being there. It isn't necessary to drill all the way though the wood, because you are just trying to make a hole to fill the galleries with poison.

4) After drilling about 60 holes in a 1sq ft area, fill each hole with as much poison as it will take until it either starts spraying out another hole, or backs up out of the hole you are spraying into.

That's all it took to get rid of a fairly large conoly of drwyood termites in my case.

Probably not applicable to a mast, but there may be some knowledge that can be taken from this and applied, or at the very least someone searching for drywood termites in boats can see this method.

So far, so good. No more termite droppings (which was how I found them during my self-survey)