[Rhodes22-list] leaks

[stan]

    I am too busy but feel obligated to repeat the following for those new to the list.

When a boat comes off the line and makes it  through our in-the-rain and in-the-water testing, perfectly bone dry,  we keep it.

On the other hand, boats can be made close to perfectly dry under all conditions, if you don't mind the effort it may take - particularly on older boats that we did not build or may have materials that have deteriorated with age, like your builder. 

The obvious first task is to find out where the water is coming in from.   For many owners, how this works is not that obvious.  Other than actually seeing a wetting out of the dried gasket material around the cb cap or water dripping down from around threads in items like the bow pulpit bolts, or from worn gaskets on opening ports (new boats use all fixed ports) or from hose connections that run from the cockpit seats out through the transom, spotting water coming into the hull on the inside is a misleading clew since its source can be elsewhere.   That is, once water gets past the outer gel coat it can travel anywhere within the laminate before it finally gets to where you see it coming up into the interior of the boat.  So the area you see water coming in, is not necessarily  the leaking area.  Yet untold used boat buyers spend untold useless hours sealing the floor around the cb bunk because this is where they think they see the water coming in.

The positive way to test for leaks from under water fittings or actual hull leaks (rare and as opposed to rain leaks) is to see water coming out of the boat, not into it.  This means having the boat out of the water.

If you suspect the lazaret area, tilt the bow up and put water into the lazaret to a height that would be above the top edge of the self bailing cockpit thru-the-hull fitting that is in the bottom of the lazaret and see if there are any drops coming from outside the hull in the area of this fitting.  On some boat this is a molded-in hose barb - on others it is a commercial 1-1/2" thru the hull fitting.  In either case this hose barb can be a culprit.  The 5" length of hose can also be the problem as can the sealant that was used.

The most common source of leakage in older boat has been the cb cap.  Particularly ones that used sealant instead of the newer neoprene gasket with machine screws with fender washers under the machine screw heads and under the nuts.   If your cb cap was put on with sheet metal screws, these can loosen up and it may be advisable to go to machine screws and fender washers and nuts rather than just re-tighten the screws.   On older boats the cb pulley system was screwed to the cb cap at a below the water level, level and these screws would show signs of wetness.   The cb on new boats has a direct pull system with no below the water level hardware so on newer boats this is not a potential leak problem.  

Some older boats had inserts screwed inside the trunk to cut down cb noise at night and these screws could leak.   And on older boats, where the cb pin did not have bearings, the ss pin itself could eventually damage the gel coat interior finish of the cb trunk and lead to water seepage.

All this can be best tested with the boat out of water.  The cockpit seat drains must be dry and no water allowed to drip into their channels while doing the test because that water will go out through the cb pennant hole and drip out the bottom of the cb trunk/keel slot and abort the testing.

Level the boat and put water in the bilge just to cover the top of the ballast.   See if any water starts to drip out the bottom of the keel slot area.   If nothing. increase the level of the water in the bilge but do not bring that level above the cb trunk lip, i.e. you do not want the level to get to the cb cap seal itself.   If still no drippings from the keel slot then increase the water level depth in the bilge until it is above the gasket level.   If still no dripping increase the water level (on older boats) until it covers the screws on top of the cap that hold the pulleys that control the old style cb), if still no dripping, you did all that work for nothing.     Start bailing and call me in the morning.  

A  few other sources: overfilling the water tank has often been the problem.   We once watched a buyer stand there with a garden hose filling his water tank instead of using our suggested measured bucket technique that keeps you from putting more than 10 to 15 gallons in this not-that-good a sealed tank top).  As we watched the boat sinking lower and lower in the water, I finally said enough already and we discovered that the hose from the deck water intake had not been connected to the water tank.  Do you have a sea cock for the head intake water? - the older type did have leakage problems.  The sink drain system has, on one occasion, been found to be using the bilge as sump instead of going overboard thru the hull fitting.  Even ice melting in an ice box was once spotted flowing out the bottom of the ice box door down to the bilge.

While the insulated construction of the Rhodes keeps condensation lower than other boats - condensation can still be a minor source.   We suggest a sponge be left in the bilge and that the bilge (which, in a non-leaking boat, should not have more than a fraction of an inch of water - or, in Rummy's case, Rum, be dried every week or 4 with its stored sponge to help keep down any mildew formation. 

If nothing works we give good trade-in credits on leaking Rhodes so we can take them out of circulation.

ss