As bronze screws decay in seawater, they can degrade the wood into which they’re driven—a process called delignification. The result of this combined metal and wood decay is both a stripped-out screw hole and a screw with compromised threads.
Caring for a wooden boat is a curious responsibility. It binds you to the long-weathered life of trees that became your boat, to the ingenuity of its designer, and to the skills of the boatwrights who constructed it. You’re even responsible to your boat’s posterity.