"Gary Warner" ) writes:

So my question: Is there anything, salt maybe?, that
I can put in the bilge water while running that will
curtail these criters & their rot while not harming
the wood or making a mess?

salt boxes in bilges is an old preventative I've read about.
don't know how well it works. it'll do not harm.
rot works faster in fresh water for sure.

if the boat were not leaking you could tar the inside to keep the water
out of the wood, but this water is comming from the outside and is
probably getting into the wood already.


Or is it nothing to worry about?

you can let it go and plan to cut out and replace the bad wood some time
in the future. eventually trot will make he wood weak enough to lose its
shape and the bottom of the boat will flatten. lapstrake boats get their
strength from the overlapped planks more than other boats with bigger
frames. you may have seen older discarded lapstrake boats hauled up on
shore with their bottoms caved in. time will do it.

I doubt the rot is an immediate concern, but something you can research
and look into.

Wooden boats don't last forever, despite what your read about 100 year old
vessels. Those old boats had to be refurbihsed and refitted every few
years, all the rotten wood cut out and new wood put in. Very little of
those historic wooden boats is original wood. In fact there's a rule that
if you replace all the wood in an old boat it's a new boat, but if you
leave a teenly little bit of oiginal wood in it then it's the same boat.

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