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

Thanks Hg and Ramona

heading down to the boat now to look some more and contemplate

Kind regards
Trace

Ramona 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

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.

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

andy59 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.

theselkie 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

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.

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.

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.

Ramona 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

DAMA 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.

Ramona 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.