Rotten Hull on the Water, Please advise!

Hello,
I have a 50 year old classic wooden boat- Grand Banks.
It is beautiful but surely keeps me busy.
I'm live abroad, and when I acquired the boat 2 years ago it was in awful condition. Side hulls had holes, and every rain flooded inside. (Repairs in FL weren't easy, that's for sure).

To the point:
The hull has very questionable bottom, I'm sure with little force I could put my finger through that wood (attached picture). We repaired majority of above water line items, but this one is a huge challenge that I really need your help with.

Here's some details I got:
-I will not be pulling boat out of the water. (Local marina has only 2 straps and it would crash the hull, not sailing with it to different marina either, not with that hull -also IDK how to operate this boat )
-Wood is mahogany,
-I don't need advise such: sell the boat or good luck at the bottom of the sea..
-I love this boat, but my knowledge/experience is limited- I need you,
-I am willing to gear up and swim under if outside action is necessary however my preference is an action-repair from inside.

Thank you and I'm looking forward to your help!

 

Are we looking at the keel? Or maybe the chine?
Anyway, repair isn't something you can do in the water, however you want to do it. Depending on overall condition you could do some things to insure the boat doesn't break or sink while taking the trip to a marine railway to be hauled out, but those would be a bandaid at best (don't ask me to explain more, it's impossible without seeing the boat).

How long the boat can float tied to a dock while remaining in this condition is unknown. The gamble might pay out or not, it's impossible to say.

 

A rotten hull CAN NOT be repaired in the water. Period end of story.

To haul

Remove as much weight as possible.
Measure the distances between chines where the hoisting straps go.
Make plywood pads to go between the straps and hull.
1inch thick with the 8foot perpendicular to straps.
Additional inch thickness parallel to straps

 

Umm Julia, that hull bottom is still in awful condition.
Very awful condition.
Do you sleep in a lifejacket at night in case she suddenly starts to sink?
You do need to get her out out the water asap - somehow, somewhere you can find suitable facilities not too far away, where the rent is not too expensive - before she does decide to do a sinking job on you.
I hope that you have a couple of high capacity electric bilge pumps installed with float switches - they might be needed to be used in anger.
However they also require a source of power.... are you hooked up to shore power to run all your domestic needs re galley, air conditioning etc?
If you sink, and your shore power is turned on at the time, there could be dangerous consequences.
Not to mention the cost of a professional salvage operation to then raise her from the bottom.

PS - can you also post some general exterior photos of your Grand banks please, and perhaps some of the accommodation areas, for general reference?

 

Well, it sounds like you’re committed to living aboard and stationary as long as it can be kept afloat, and there may be some out of the box solutions that could keep it floating for awhile.
Do keep in mind that what I’m suggesting is not actually repairing, just extending the time it will float.
It will sink eventually.
Ok, here’s my thought:
Have a cover made for the boats bottom, a watertight membrane, probably use Herculite or similar reinforced waterproof tarp with seams glue sealed or thermo welded. Cut off the propellers and rudders to avoid snaggy spots.
When you get the thing wrapped under the bottom and secured to the gunnels, and the water pumped out, then find the spots you can poke your finger through, and throw in some backing over the weak spots.
Plywood, deck screws, whatever it takes, just don’t run any screws clear through your tarp!
Another solution might be to drive some pilings around the boat and hang it on them, with some pool pumps installed that can run constantly.
You will find insurance to be a major roadblock if your boat is moored anywhere that’s not your own private property.
Marinas are not fond of boats that have potential to sink.

 

Hello Julia,

Welcome to the Forum.

You are in a bit of a predicament.
And you're not getting much encouragement here.
If you're not willing to remove it from the water then there is little hope.
Do you have a budget for restoration?

More pictures with a description of what we're looking at might help.

 

Let this one sit for a couple weeks letting other people respond, but it's been a while so some reality seems in order.

Your essentially asking if there is a bandaid fix for a gunshot wound, and resistant to the idea of a hospital and surgery. The short answer is, there isn't really a good suggestion in those parameters. There aren't really even any mediocre or sub optimum suggestions.

Kenny Roger's jingle "know when to hold them and when to fold them" applies in this situation.

I realize that's not what you're looking for, but it's the inescapable reality. Below the waterline rot so pervasive your fingers can penetrate it... that's not an in water fix. It might not even be a practical out of water fix.

 

I get a kick out of this thread. There are a couple 42' woodies in my marina on two year haulouts for extensive wood repairs. When I asked how much the guy has into the work on one; the contractor told me about 80 grand, but far from done. I asked the contractor if that is pushing past final economic boat value and he said. "For sure".

The thing about wood rot is planking is one thing, but floors and other structural elements are something else entirely.

So, someone trying bandaids is really only going to make it worse and ultimately the plywood and pine tar idea gets really expensive or you sell for nothing when the next guy sees what you did because rot is pervasive; it creeps along until total destruction.

And I'll accept no liability for my comments.

 

It doesn't sound safe to use as a boat. Would most of its sales value be for the topside scrap wood and furnishings?

I'm not a carpenter. But could she cover the top of the floor with thick enough fiberglass or other material to take her weight, take the boat out of the water, possibly cut away the wood floor, and live in it over the land? In other words, turn it into a cabin or guest house?

I mean no offense by suggesting that it be used as something other than the boat. But it sounds like it has sentimental value, so she may be unwilling to scrap it.

 

I get the impression that @Julia R has given up on us - the last time she logged on to the Forum was the 28th February.

Julia, if this finds you, could you let us have an update please re the current status of your Grand Banks?

 

I probably should have looked at the last login date before I responded. Just didn't want to respond straight out of the gate cuz it's not fun being the destroyer of Dreams even if they're bad dreams.

Writing this while sitting in front of a heater warming up in a boat yard that's close to 50 acres. Having spent most of my adult life on or near the Waterfront the amount of people with rose colored glasses and horrible situations is getting hard to track. Like there's always two or three a year locally, some pull it off through sheer determination. Most become a navigational hazard due to lack of making hard choices. One of my boats has an outside stall, on a long finger. I've had two "hopes dreams and a bandaid" boats end up logged on that stall. Got a pretty good scar on a wheel house from a sail boat owned by someone unwilling or unable to make the requisite repairs.

I get it, boats have a romance to them as such it attracts dreamers. But nothing lasts forever, and some repairs require hard choices. Truthfully that's all of life. Some of the suggestions might be good ways to get hauled, but let's be honest none even come close to a long term or even mid term reliable fix. That level of rot will be in stringers if it isn't already, and it's just a storm surge away from being a reef. Not much joy in pointing that out, just the sad reality of old boats.

 

She might have to deal with zoning laws, and bring it up to housing code, which it likely wasn't built to meet. While I've seen many pictures of boats turned into land homes, maybe it isn't always economically practical.

 

some marinas offer the ability to live aboard on the hard, but it is typically a limited period

 

It's a live aboard, doesn't go to sea, in fact, it never leaves the dock.
The only place it goes is up and down with the tide and,
by the sound of it, may not come back up one day soon.