bb,
His problem is very unique in that the termites' are living in his water
tank used for drinking.


"bb" wrote in message
...
On 11 Dec 2005 12:13:56 -0800, wrote:

I just read in another page someone saying "termites are land based and
not a problem on
boats." Well, I have a 39ft fibreglass sail boat that has a collony
living in the baffles in the watertank. appearently the baffles built
by the first owner 20yrs back were constructed of plywood and glassed
in.

I've run into a lot of boats with termites. There's two kinds,
subterranean, and dry wood. Yeah, the subterranean live in the ground
and infest wood from their ground bases, so they are not a problem on
boats.

Dry woods, otoh, don't need to live in the ground. They spread by
wing and can infest any wood structure, with no need to go
underground.

When subterranean termites infest a home, the colony can already be
huge, so they can do serious damage in a short length of time. Dry
woods, like you no doubt have, do their damage very slowly. Although
the colonies are small, the problem arises when they swarm, re infest
other areas, and eventually you end up with many, many small colonies
that together do substantial damage.

Boats can be sealed up and treated just like a house. I've seen the
typical tents used, but more often the boat is sealed up with duct
tape and plastic. I can't imagine there's not exterminators with
access to the Vicane gas used in every country. Vicane is what is
used in the US, possibly in some countries there's still access to the
older, more potent treatment gases.

Another stop gap measure is to spot treat the area. If you look
closely above the tell tale pellet piles, there will be very small
holes were the termites periodically dump the pellets out of the nest.
There are some aerosol treatments you pump into the holes with a
needle like applicator. Also, there's a couple of area treatments
used to treat the wood surface. It basically just makes the wood
poison to the termites. They can be found at do it yourself pest
control places, and also eco friendly type sources.

Good luck.

bb

thanks for the info, the bugs are living in the baffle and wood
surrounding the water tanks. I know I won't be using them for water
again and will be purchacing a bladder and hard tank at some future
port. Fortunatatly, I just got my water maker working so am looking at
reducing the size of tanks anyway. I had 2 100gal tanks. I will see if
I can find vicane locally. Thanks
again
Brad