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I was surprised to find the ribs in my boat are fastened with nails. Some are close to the plank edge. All the ribs aft of the deck must be replaced. I'm concerned about damaging the planks when removing the nails and wondering if it makes sense to cut them behind the ribs, but leave them in place and refasten with bronze screws a bit above the nail.

On my Off Shore I encountered 2 or 3 ribs that were nailed and screwed. I believe that they did this to hold the laps in position while thru bolting.
Some of the nail heads were in very deep and to minimize damage I cut them thru from behind the rib. On one rib I cut the rib thru at the sister keelson and then gently pulled up on the ribs to free it from the nails. Then I pushed the nails back thru the hull for removal.
I don't see any reason why your plan wouldn't work since the screw heads are sunk and puttied over anyways.
Just for reference my hull has # 6 screws of the appropriate length. Some of the original screws were in length incriments of 1/8 inch which to the best of my knowledge are no longer available.
Good Luck.
Karl

Many components of the boat are first fastened with a nail and later the workers came back and installed a screw. This is especially true with anything that is steam bent. They bend it and quickly get a nail installed to hold it in place. Later then come back and screw things together.

Are there no screws attaching the planks to the ribs? That is a surprise? Are there bolts with nuts on the inside attaching plank to plank between the ribs?

Andreas

The hull is through bolted with three bolts between each rib as they are supposed to be. It's only the fasteners in the ribs in question.

I have not yet stripped the boat or pulled the rub rail hiding the bottom of the sheer plank, but it seems clear the top three planks on both sides are fastened to the ribs with nails only, no screws, no bolts. I scraped enough paint around a couple of nail heads to be sure. The nails are slightly inset and puttied over. Some are nearly on the edge of the outer plank edge and that's the reason I'm reluctant to remove them or try to drill the nail holes bigger for screws.

The planks below are fastened with screws. The puttied holes over these are slightly smaller than the holes hiding the bolts fastening the planks together and are also very close to the plank edge. I guess the screws they used had slightly smaller heads than the bolts. This part of the process must have been fast and perhaps the best craftsmen were focused on other tasks. The holes are pretty randomly placed.

As I mentioned in another post I plan to replace the center keelson and all the ribs up to the deck line. Then flip the boat and remove, refurbish and refasten the planks at least to the waterline. I'm hoping I can initially dry fasten the ribs and center keelson, ribs with just enough fasteners to keep the boat from falling apart in the flipping process. The questions are how many is just enough and where best to put them? I was thinking at the top the ribs will be fastened by the screws through covering board so perhaps 2 additionally screws is enough (one at the chine and one through lower plank) and perhaps every third screw through the garboard plank into the keelson. I will also add temporary supports as described in other posts. I'm assuming it will be OK to leave out the sister keelsons initially and install them after the boat is flipped and the ribs are exposed.

There is area in the hull about 4 ft long near the bow where 3 rows of bolts have been replaced with steel. The rusted nuts on the interior under the deck were my first clue about that. I'm hoping some liquid epoxy can mitigate the likely to be found rust damage, but would welcome suggestions on how to proceed there. Is there a nail sickness remedy I should apply before refastening and I suspect removal of the steel bolts will be troublesome, any thoughts?