Visit our Popular Forums

MV-Romnya · 04-07-2012, 20:02

I have a 1950's 28 ft 5 ton wooden motor cruiser (no sail) with a gradually tapered flat keel- the original copper sheeting is wearing away and I wish to replace it at the next slip - to do that Iwill have to remove the sacrificial keel, peel off the old copper and replace with new copper and replace the sacrificial keel with new wood - anyone with that sort of experience out there.

The boat lives in SSE of Australia (Lakes Entrance/Mallacoota) and the lakes around there have worms - I replaced some of the sacrificial keel last slip and it was infested with holes made by one worm - MVR

ShaunJ · 04-07-2012, 21:29

Sounds like a big project, but what do I know. I am sure someone here has done this before. Good luck to you Romnya.
BTW, i love old wooden boats.

Blue Stocking · 06-07-2012, 14:23

In the early 60s worked in a yard here in Bermuda that maintained the Royal navy pinnaces. 52 ft LOD, plumb stem, deep wine glass transom, double diagonal teak, nailed and rooves.
Bottoms coppered with 4 ft square sheets, can't remember the guage, fastened with 1" bronze ring nails on a 6" grid IIRC. Lots of pin punch holes done in place so that the dimpled copper gave a bite into the planking.
I seem to recall coating some plaking with hot bitumen.
We worked from stern forward, and from deadwood up.
These boats didn't have a sacrificial shoe, which was the reason we got to replace the cladding regularly. ( Royal navy liberty launches and shoals don't work together

)
We would form up a "U" shaped piece to cover the underside, and up the sides of the deadwood.
The upper edges of this keel cap were finished into a shallow 'V" shaped rebate cut into a suitable plank 2 or 3 above the garboard.
The sheeting was them worked with various wooden mallets and dollies as we proceeded upward and forward.
I worked under a true craftsmen, retired RN "chippie" who built lightships, and incidentally, was on HMS Amythest, the gunboat in the Yangste River incident.