The endless battle against the damp

No one should keep a boat in England. 

Our boat is damp. The damp gets inside, it never gets dry and now, the woodwork is starting to rot. It seems water finds its way in all over the deck, through the fittings and around the hatch. Hopefully not through the hull.

A particularly bad spot

This problem is mostly confined to the stern, and to wood where the varnish had worn away. Unfortunately some pannels that were hidden from view were untreated, and have also started to rot. As the structural bulkheads stopping the boat folding in half are also wood, it would be good to stop this before it goes any further.

In hindsight we should have forseen this, and done everything we could to prevent the damp getting in as soon as we got back to Ipswich. Mostly we have tackled the problem half heartedly, trying a little harder each weekend and giving the boat more time to rot. I wish we had gone all out from the start.

We now have everything that could possibly hold moisture off the boat (sitting in my room). We have taken apart a lot of the structure, eg. the galley, to let air circulate and water escape. We have a dehumidifier, and, new this weekend, we have a heater. Fingers crossed that it's enough.

Dehumidifier

Heater