Making lemonade

So, while working on the boat this weekend, I saw a dent in the hull from the top of the fender. Upon poking at it, it turned out to be a rot pocket. poop.

So, I dug at it for a while with my wrecking chisel (fasteners in the way) and came to this:


A hole. Full of rotten wood. Its actually about 4"x2". Given that it was a dry day (defying the forecast) I went to quick work opening the hole up and making a nice geometric hole to put in another set of dutchmen. But it needed more....

I Cass invited a wooden boat guy that we both know well for a second opinion. The long and the short of the discussion is that I should put a graving piece in to hold it for the winter, and replace the planks in the summer with the good weather.

To summarize the work in pictures. I carved out and test fit the bottom dutchman:


Then I put some borate salts in the void with a little water to spread it around, then dried the area as best I could with the heat gun. I then added some CPES to the area to assist in the bonding epoxies grip and for stability through the winter.


Then I epoxied the bottom piece in, holding with the wedges. Then the rain came and I taped a plastic patch over the spot and retreated inside.



But, this particular find bummed me out. A lot. But talking with Paul really helped. Words of wisdom and help:
"This is not a big deal, don't let it get you down."
"This will be a really fun little project in the summer, you'll learn to put in planks."
"This stuff happens and knowing how to fix it is a good skill to learn ASAP."
All these comments are little mantras I say to myself while processing this 'surprise'.

So, the good things to come of this:
-I found it and I have good people to help me fix it
-It only took me ~6 hours to put in this dutchman, as opposed to about a week for the first one I did... I'm getting better!
-Using this as a catalyst, I will learn to plank! (the most exciting part of it... it is almost worth having the rot pocket in order to learn this skill!)

So... making lemonade.