Pressure washing hull

[Folksailor1]

Hi,
I bought a fifty year old 32ft wooden boat earlier this year, carvel planked with mahogany. She will be coming out of the water soon and I was wondering if I should avoid having the yard use the pressure wash on her or am I being unnecessarily paranoid? If not, would other methods could be used? Thanks..

 

[gpascoe]

If you just want to remove the foliage on the hull, high pressure water washing should be OK. I use it on my own 50 year old with no problems. There is rather a lot of paint there though.

To be on the safe side, do it yourself, and do it as soon as you get it out of the water. Before you start, check the hull for soft or weak/rotten, bare points. These will have to be fixed anyway, but you could make it worse by adding fresh water to the wound. Go easy at first, washing from a distance, and with broad strokes. By observation, you can then gauge how much pressure you can get away with. Take along green kitchen scouring pads, plastic hand scrapers, and fine wet and dry emery paper to work at the stubborn bits. These will generally be around the waterline and the corners of fittings and submerged areas of your rudder.

Finish the job in one shift. Don't let any part of the surface get dry or it will take you twice as long and you'll give yourself tennis elbow scrubbing it off. Wetting it again won't help.

And bring a bucket.

 

[Folksailor1]

Great, thank you for the post.

 

[rogerdog]

[ QUOTE ]
I
Finish the job in one shift. Don't let any part of the surface get dry or it will take you twice as long and you'll give yourself tennis elbow scrubbing it off. Wetting it again won't help.
And bring a bucket.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wise advice .... guess how I know !

Would also add a stiff sweeping brush that is easy for the bits that don't come clean as getting under a dripping wet hull to reach the lower sections is most unpleasant + as said before go gently with the pressure washer and keep it moving as it can damage bare wood surprisingly easily.

 

[Sixpence]

Know that feeling well.
Also add
Start off with the jet of water at an angle away from you, not just because you get less on yourself which is a bonus, but also because there is less pressure hitting the wood and more to lift the stuff off. Increase the angle if it doesn't shift it, but always keep the jet moving, don't be tempted to keep it on any particular stubborn bit, it will shift in the end.
Hope this helps.

 

[Casey]

Kala Sona came out of the water briefly today for a survey (hopefully sold!) and I pressure washed the weed off her just the same as I have done for the past seven years. I used a bog standard washer from B & Q and blasted the weed off fairly easily although I was disappointed with the antifouling paint. Sometimes I have had some falkes of paint come off but that is a bonus because it is loose anyway but I have never had a problem with damage to the Mahogany planking.

Because she is on a very restless swinging mooring some of her topsides paint is always wet and that comes off very easily with pressure washing; it is nothing to worry about just a function of gloss paint - it does not like being wet all of the time.