How to get rid of the stowaways that came with our boat?

KeyWest · Post by **KeyWest** » Wed Feb 02, 2011 1:10 pm

When we got our boat last year we were dismayed to find there were tiny black or brown ants that came with it. I see one at a time usually, and usually in the cockpit. I am baffled how ants could get into a boat that was sitting in saltwater and survive there. Where could their nest be? There's never a swarm. They never came out of the woodwork when I had a plate of food sitting out, like you see at a picnic. I tried bombing the boat with insecticide shortly after we got it but it had no effect.

Since there were so few of them I never worried about it too much, but I do want to get rid of them once and for all. Does anyone have any advice?

hp18carr · Post by **hp18carr** » Wed Feb 02, 2011 2:02 pm

KeyWest

Use a type of slow poison the workers will eat and take back to their Queen... finding the nest itself maybe impossible.

Terrence
Wilmington N.C.
Chrysler 26' 1980
Pandora (for now)

Papax3 · Post by **Papax3** » Wed Feb 02, 2011 3:19 pm

Very difficult problem to be sure.
Follow their trails as possible, and see if they have engineered a place inside the inner-liners honeycomb construction. I had a difficult situation in a house (similar), and I followed the trail to a 1/8th inch hole... I enlarged the hole, and found Raid Ant spray with a long "staw-type" spray nozzle. I placed the nozzle in the hole, and let loose multiple times, then immediately covered the hole with caulking. They never came back. My thoughts are that they must be hidden for the bomb not to work. There's plenty of room between the hull and the innerliner, but the bomb most likely would have worked there.
Far more dangerous is liquid arsenic... they like the sweet taste, and take it back to the hive... but there are safer products now. A critical need for all colonizing insects is water. They have clearly found a source in the walls of you boat. Another reason I think that you'll either find them in the inner-liner walls, or in the compartments where the foam is.
I found a 5 gallon bucket-load of dirt-dobber nests when I cleaned out my boat. Might try getting someone to shine a light down the "bow hole" inside the cockpit, and then see if you can use a mirror to find trails by looking toward the light from different access spots. If your boat is holding slight amounts of water at the bottom of the hull where the keel-pin port/access is...... poison that water.

Hope that gets you thinkin'
Bill

KeyWest · Post by **KeyWest** » Wed Feb 02, 2011 4:24 pm

What's the inner liner? The space under the cockpit is just bare fiberglass. I find them mostly in the cockpit. Maybe they're in that space next to the hole in the transom. I did try to clean it with a waterhose.

monty · Post by **monty** » Wed Feb 02, 2011 4:37 pm

You won't find any foam in the 26.
Hondas are easy to work on, I tore down an 8h.p. I used to have to replace the rings. The only problem is with some of the bolts they use - salt eats them up bad! Too bad someone like Honda would use such low quality bolts!
The thermostat on mine was trashed (from salt) and wouldn't close so the engine ran cold resulting in excessive ring wear.
Might as well tear it down and see what you've got - after staying immersed in salt it might not be much!

LeatherneckPA · Post by **LeatherneckPA** » Wed Feb 02, 2011 5:35 pm

Put the boat on a trailer and drag up here to visit me. Stay one week and I guarantee there will be no live ants left on your boat.

lecker68 · Post by **lecker68** » Wed Feb 02, 2011 6:44 pm

I would spray a poison liberaly in the lazzarette in the port cockpit setee and at stern where you put the fuel tank if you are seeing them in cockpit only.

Alanhod · Post by **Alanhod** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 6:08 am

KeyWest wrote:What's the inner liner? The space under the cockpit is just bare fiberglass. I find them mostly in the cockpit. Maybe they're in that space next to the hole in the transom. I did try to clean it with a waterhose.

Hi KeyWest,

The liner is the inner shell of your boat. The hull is one fiberglass shell and sitting inside of it the the inner fiberglass shell or liner. This gives you that nice shinny inner finish to your interior cabin. Now between the hull and the liner is a honeycomb cardboard like material... Okay I think it is cardboard, and it is the spacer to give rigidity to both the liner to hull to decking.

I believe the speculation is that your little ant stow aways are between the hull and the liner. So I'm thinking the slow poison that the workers can haul back to the nest is what you want. You will not be able to get to the nest without literally cutting up your boat. No cutting at all advised.

That should take care of your ant stow aways who thought they would go see the watery part of the world for a while.

Thanks
Alan

Capt. Bondo · Post by **Capt. Bondo** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 8:56 am

We used terro ant killer, both in the house and on the boat.
http://www.shopping.com/Terro-TERRO-Liq ... Terro/info
Only need to put it out once and are are usally all gone in a week.