Diesel on wooden planks

[MapisM]

Due to a small leakage in a (somewhat hidden) tank joint, I had some diesel pouring over an area of the bildge.
As a result, some iroko planks are now soaked with diesel.
I was told that this shouldn't create any problem, apart from some difficulties in getting the antifoul to stay attached to those planks. I even heard that a piece of wood soaked with diesel will never rot, or will take much longer anyway.
I'm not convinced though - would it be that simple, wooden hulls should always be soaked with diesel....!?
Thanks in advance for any experiences/opinions on that.

 

[ccscott49]

Diesel is not good for wood, as you say, if it was we would be dosing our old wooden boats with it! It's mineral oil based, so not good. Try and get as much out as possible with rags etc, then get some fullers earth, or lots of cheap talc, to put all over the area of the spill, this will eventually, soak up the diesel from inside the wood, keep replacing it when it gets damp with diesel.
Left alone, it will breakdown the cellulose fibres in the wood and the wood will falll apart and crumble. You can see this on some of the old trawlers, where over the years they didn't care two much about oil or diesel leaks and the engine room area on the outside of the hull was rotten.

 

[MapisM]

Fall apart and cramble... gosh, I didn' imagine it could be that bad. I'll do my best to clean the bildge as well as possible.
Not sure for how long the leakage have been there, but some planks seem to have absorbed the diesel quite well.
In fact, thick as they are - almost 2 inches - they look and smell oily also on the outside.
The wood consistency seems OK though.
Do you have an idea about how long it might take for the diesel to really ruin the wood?

 

[rich]

300 years, the bottem is the bit they find first.

rich )