Customer Reviews

The Boatowner's Guide to Corrosion

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This is a subject most boatowners are clueless about. And when you read the book you'll realize not being educated on the subject can ask for serious trouble (even electricution from corroded wires). I thought it was basically just saltwater corroding a metal hull. What I didn't know is that there are two types of corrosion: galvanic and electrolytic. Everyone knows galvanic (a less corrosive metal corroding a more corrosive metal) but I wasn't aware that the most destructive type is electrolytic. This is where two dissimalarly anticorrosive metals corrode because of an electric (or) stray current running through them. Boats have electrical systems, many of which are improperly installed with regard to corrosion prevention, and this is where most corrosion comes from; much of the corrosion from not just the hull but everything metal comes from this. So even for fiberglass boats, there are still metal parts in your boat like your engine, your electrical system, metal plumbing pipes, and a lot more. The back cover shows a stainless steel seacock mounted to a bronze through-hull. Had I been on that boat it wouldn't have occured to me that that's asking for the more anticorrosive stainless steel to corrode the bronze. Now I know to fit marine parts that have similar values on the galvanic table (unless you can put sacrifical zinc anodes).

At a marina, if you plug your boat into an A/C outlet, any other boats who also are connected will connect a stream of electricity between both of your hulls (your electrical grounding). That also means NEVER go in marina water unchecked-you could get shocked. Even then, a neutral wire failing all of a sudden on a boat connected to A/C or a generator could cause all the electricity to go to the grouding with a much more severe electricution. The author gives a generalized example of you having a boat with sacrificial zinc anodes ($) and the other guy having a bronze hull. That electrical stream will rust your zinc to save his boat for as long as they're both connected. A few people cut the grounding wire to prevent this which is a big mistake (and should just have a simple Galvanic Isolater installed), but if your hot wire finds another path, or your neutral wire fails, your whole boat and the nearby water will get scorched-and corroded. You also don't know how safe the other guy's boat is. If it happened to the other guy, your zinc gets scorched. His electrical wires may be inexpensive residental wires, not marine grade wires, ready to fail and scorch your zinc. If his neutral wire and grounding wire are connected as one (which some careless people do) then there is some electricity in the water by his boat from the grounding wire returning electricity from the neutral wire, also getting to your zinc. These boats are out there. These issues may sound like electrical rather than corrosive, but corroded metals can be dangerous, breakable, and can create pathways for straycurrent as well as slowly creep upon your electrical system, potentially damaging your hot, neutral, and/or grounding wires. And corrosion is basically 50% electricity, %50 metallurical chemistry.

See, there's more to corrosion than just saltwater corroding steel, aluminum, and propellors. Hope this review helps. Buy the book. And Happy Sailing! Bonvoyage!

This book is a good introduction to understanding how and why corrosion occurs on a boat. It covers materials of construction in great detail with many chapters on various metals but is somewhat weak on a number of significant issues such as reference cells, measuring potentials, cathodic protection calculations and stray currents.

This book by Mr. Collier reads like a textbook at times as it covers the theory behind corrosion. But it's not that hard and if you can get a handle on the info in this book, you'll get a handle on the corrosion on your boat and I can pretty much guarantee you that it'll save you mega headaches, mega problems and mega bucks down the road.