CD85D - Hull #1

[Oswego John]

After a long, record breaking winter, today work resumed for the season on the 85' schooner OMF Ontario.

Springtime, my elbow. I was up at 0400 to see that it was still snowing very lightly. I planned to leave for Sodus, a 35 mile trip, at 0700 but first I had to scrape the rime ice off the windshield.

As the motley krew assembled, we first had a skull session to hear what the "old man" had in store for us for the coming season. I hate surprises.

The first order of business was to clean up the debris and other assorted messes that the winter had left us. Sad to say, a large, half rotted branch from a huge tree came down across the aft section of the ship. It totally destroyed the wooden coaming and some of the brace supports for the shrink wrap which, fortunately, never got installed. Toward late October, we were racing against winter to get the ship secured for nasty weather. Alas, winter won the race, we lost. The shrink wrap is still rolled up inside its carton, ready for next year's race.

For those who are not familiar with my oft repeated story, in 1988 a group of old geezers lost their sanity and decided to build a boat. No, not a boat-boat but a ship, an 85 foot long,welded steel, two masted schooner which is a replica of an early cargo carrying schooner common a century ago when plying the waters of the Great Lakes.

Two summers ago, we had the ship hauled for the Coast Guard five year, underwater hull inspection. To our dismay, we discovered that the hull had received severe microbiological damage. The USCG refused to pass inspection.and we were told that we must remove the damaged hull plates and weld in new skin. Hah, $$$. Better yet, mega $$$. At just about that time the price of steel soared.

The new steel is installed, the welded joints have all been inspected and passed. There is still some engine reinstallation work, modification of some controls and construction of a new fuel tank. The keel will be sandblasted and epoxied, the hull painted top and bottom and the masts spars and rigging be reinstalled. We're going sailing this summer, dammit.

O J




<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/B ... site"><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_9pAn ... F0020a.JPG" height="600" width="800" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/OswegoJohn ... e">2010-06 (Jun)</a></td></tr></table>
Port side exposed ribs.


https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_9pAn ... er0012.JPG
Removing damaged plate with oxy-acetylene torch


https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_9pAn ... er0017.JPG
1/8" craters in 1/4" steel plate. Microbiological damage.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_9pAn ... er0020.JPG
finished welded hull

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_9pAn ... 0/omf2.jpg

Full Sail. This is what we want to be doing this summer.
O J

[RichS]

What is the plan to prevent this from happening again? Also, any idea what organism eats steel? Is it just steel that it is attracted to or does it do the same to wood and fiberglass?

By the way great picture under sail!