“Zinc”, “zincs”, and "corrosion” didn’t produce many results in the search feature on this forum, so here is a question or two for you all:
I put a couple of zincs on my soon-to-be re-launched Ariel: one on the rudder shoe and one on the rudder, grounded to the upper rudder shaft. The rudder shoe zinc is just an OB motor zinc. Larger zincs did not seem to fit the flat space available on the shoe.
I noted at open time that some vestigial wires seem to have connected shroud chain plates to something else, but I am not sure to what exactly. A green wire runs to the rusty steel bolt protruding from my ballast. I have been told that is an RF ground for the Loran. Since I have some new thru-hulls with cool little bonding screws in their flanges, I'd like to connect them to something. Anyone have any idea how the metal on these boats (OB Models) were originally protected from corrosion?
And has anyone come up with a really good bonding system for thru-hulls? I had trouble finding an appropriate zinc to bolt to the rudder shoe that was large enough to last between annual haul-outs. Time to get out the snorkel I guess. As far as the rudder-mounted zinc, I did not want to go too heavy there, and that zinc should be fairy easy to replace in the water.
I was also thinking that I could make up removable zinc that could be used when the boat was at the dock. I could connect all the bondable devices on the boat to a wire that ran back to a bolt mounted in the OB well, and hang a zinc there from that bolt that could be removed when it was time to go sailing: Sort of a poor man's version of that $55 zinc fish on stainless steel wire that West Marine sells.
Any thoughts?