Stern post joint failure

[Robin_Dicker]

Can anyone suggest a solution to the following.

The joint where the stern post is tennoned into the timber keel on my (recently totally restored!) International One Design has apparently failed.

The result is water ingress into the bilge.

I understand that the joint is a dry one and have been told by the yard that it can't be solved by glueing, sealing, caulking or splining etc.

All they can suggest is pouring some pitch into the floor of the bilge and hoping that will prevent water ingress. Or totally dismsantling the boat!

Any suggestions or comments gratefully received.

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[Mirelle]

I may be misunderstanding the situation, here, and I must apologise if I am "teaching Grandmother", but here are a couple of thoughts:

1. The problem may simply be a failed stopwater; have you driven the stopwaters out and renewed them? This is particularly likely if the boat has been out of the water for some time. The stopwaters are softwood dowels with the grain running along the dowel, driven across seams to stop water migrating along them by swelling up more than the surrounding timber. Very old and reliable wooden shipbuilding technology, but sometimes the stopwaters don't swell up as they should if they are old and the boat has been dry for a time.

2. An old cure for odd leaks is a grease gun containing a mixture of white lead paste and a little grease, with a grease nipple screwed into a coachscrew which has a hole bored down its length. Drill a pilot for the screw, wind it in with a spanner, hook on the grease gun and pump until white lead paste is seen emerging somewhere else. Repeat as required. This is amazingly effective, and does no damage at all because the white lead paste stays soft and will squeeze out if the wood takes up.

3. If the problem is actually the mortise and tenon at the heel of the sternpost, this is structurally significant, rather than a mere matter of leaking. A cure sometimes seen is a metal fishplate on each side, through bolted to both keel and sternpost.

<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?

 

[Robin_Dicker]

Thanks Mirelle,

The problem, as you say, is with the mortice and tenon joint at the heel of the sternpost.

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[SteamShipW]

A thought. I wonder if you could use Jeffries Marine Glue. You know, the old fashioned bitumen looking stuff for deck seams. It pours like oil, runs into every crack, and expels water then sticks like crazy, whilst remaining flexible. You would need to arrange a means of getting the glue to pour into the joint. And you need to have the glue at 180 degrees C when you pour it. A crazy thought? Maybe not so crazy.

Good luck with whatever solution you end up with.

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