If you own a wooden boat, this article by Chris McMullen and Baden Pascoe is essential reading:  "Loving your boat to death". 

From the article: "Apart from fresh water ingress, electrochemical destruction of hull timbers is the biggest threat to our classic fleet" Thanks Chris and Baden for getting the word out.

When we first bought Arethusa, her rudder and keel shoe were steel. She had two zinc anodes. There was electrochemical damage (caustic soda that eats away at the kauri) around the rudder stock and powdering on the shaft log.

The pics below, show the work we've done to ditch the steel and have all similar metals (bronze and SS) underwater, and remove our zinc anode completely.

A huge thank you (as always) to shipwright John Gander, for all your incredibly skilled work.

Damage around the rudder stock, horn timber and cheeks. 

We replaced the steel rudder with one made from purple heart with aluminium bronze forks.

The soft wood was removed from around the rudder stock and new kauri glued into place.  The two cheeks and their galv fastenings were removed and replaced with purple heart and copper bolts. You can read about that whole job here.

Horn timber repaired, two new purple heart cheeks fitted.

While the new rudder made an improvement, we were still getting a white powdering around the shaft log coming from the steel keel shoe and zinc anode set up.

In 2023, we decided to remove the steel keel shoe and replace it with a bronze one, and do away with our zinc anode completely. 

Shaft log "powdering" caustic soda.

 The set up we replaced - steel keel shoe and zinc anode

New aluminium bronze shoe

Removable base will make rudder removal easier.

Protruding channel filed with cement

Job done, anode removed permanently.

One year on, pleased to report, the timber around the shaftlog is no longer producing caustic soda, a total win for Arethusa's timbers.

Deb and I were down south recently and did the Farewell Spit Bus trip. The tour operators were able to tell us approximately where Arethusa ran aground all those years ago, amazing.

They dragged the boat to the other side of the Spit and relaunched her, about 1.2km's!

Over the years we've got keen on changing Arethusa's wheelhouse to be more in keeping with her age, so at 102 she's undergone some cosmetic surgery :)

We lost 8" inches of headroom in wheelhouse when we installed the Gardner, so we've gone up in height 6 inches and forward 8 inches and gone for more traditional upright windows fw'd.

Arethusa's dry stack has been raining rust into the bilges for many years. Finally got around to an upgrade. This one's made completely of stainless and has no holes where the rain can get in. Way better. Many thanks Shayne for helping me move the mast and get the old one out and this one back in.

We got Jack from Picton back in 2008, an 8'6" kauri clinker. From what we've learnt he was probably built by the Jack Morgan yard in the 60's. If anyone recognises him and has any more history, we'd love to hear it.

Installing the Gardner was a big job. We were out at Ashby's for 10 weeks. Arethusa's engine room has always been an unopened box - rusty steel fuel tanks and decades of oil and fuel leaks had made a pretty good mess. It took days just to disconnect everything, working through dozens of frozen bolts down there in dark and akward places.

Arethusa has always had a weep coming in through the transom. She'd had a slightly dodgy transom alteration many years ago and that had been camouflaged with coverboards and a margin piece. We decided to take these off and have a good look.

For the last twelve months we've been restoring a 4LW Gardner for Arethusa. It arrived on a truck from Picton weighing in at 1.2 tonnes.

We've been using a big ice chest up in forepeak to keep stuff cold, takes 6-7 frozen water bottles to drive it. Most meals on Arethusa happen in the cockpit using the hatch cover as a table, so we now have the fridge right next door to the action.

After selling Arethusa, Hereward Pickmere bought Winsome from his father. She's a 1918 Bailey & Lowe, he carried out most of the charting of his atlas from her. Caught up with David Pickmere in Omakiwi over the weekend and we got some shots of the two boats side by side...