Ninnyfish, a 1949 13.5-foot Lyman Leader, came to us for a complete preservation. In the process of stripping many, many pounds of paint, we discovered extensive rot in her transom, transom gussets and interior transom framing.
Replacing all of it was our only choice.
A major source of the problem is that Ninnyfish was painted with other than proper bottom paint from the waterline down. That paint has failed severely over the years, and the worst of it was the transom’s bottom plank and the seam between the two transom planks.
Someone had attempted to address the issues by excavating that seam and filling it with some sort of 5200-esque goop. While the intensions were good, the result was a huge water trap that spanned the entire seam.
Happily the aft ends of the strakes are fine. No rot has been exposed there, or anywhere else on the entire hull, save for the one small outer gunwale failure on port where a bolt passed through the gunwale and secured the forward leg of the transom gusset on that side.
We will finish the interior surface of the transom planks and all of the transom framing ahead of putting everything back together. (While the exterior surfaces will be stained with the Sandusky Paint Company’s Lyman Mahogany filler stain, we will add some walnut to these interior surfaces so they more closely match the stain we found there.