Subject: wood, stem rot, Matthews
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003

Doc,
I am looking at purchasing a 53' Matthews, 1968, wooden MY. I just went into the bow of the boat (forward stateroom), picked up the decking and poked my knife down into the stem ( I believe that's the correct term, runs at bottom of bilge through entire boat length). At any rate, the knife sunk about 3/4" without pushing too hard, probably would have gone much further but its not my boat......There is about a 2" area that is really soft like I mentioned then it fans out to about a total of 4 inches. Near the edges of that 2" area the knife sinks about a 1/4". The boat is in the water and everything your site says is to dry it out before using CPES. Where this wood is, is within the first 2 feet of the boat and it now is dry in the bilge in that area. If I scrap off the mildew/mold/residue on top of this wood, do you think I could dry it out enough to use CPES or would this have to be out of the water? I am thinking acetone, heat guns, etc..Thoughts?

Thanks,
Greg

We did exactly what you are thinking about to the horn timber of our old tug. Shouldn't be any problem, especially since you are saying that the bilge's are dry there. We propped a hair dryer on low heat high fan and it did the trick. Ours was a 6" x 10" timber that was 3/4 black mush in some spots. We were scooping it out with our hands. A little area like you are talking about is no problem for CPES.

Doc