[Rhodes22-list] Unsinkable Rhodes 22

andrew collins engineerpac at gmail.com
Fri Jun 27 17:30:40 EDT 2008


 Stan

A couple of weeks ago a series of thunderstorms rolled through town without
seeming to be more than that. After going out to the boat a few days later I
noticed a lot of water in the bilge, up to the centerboard gasket. My boat
usually leaks from the top so the water is sweet, but this was a mix. The
cushions were tossed about, and the gas tank had shifted 90 deg off of its
rail. A sweatshirt under the galley was sopping wet. Other than that
everything seemed normal.

Upon pulling up to the dock from the mooring, a gentleman in a launch pulled
up and asked if there was a lot of water in my boat. I asked how he knew,
and the answer was that the boat had been seen on its side with the spreader
touching the water when a storm cell with 70-80 mph winds came through the
harbor.

Now I am very impressed and feel like I sidestepped a bullet along with the
boat. The results of this incident are that I found quite a few SS screws in
the bilge that must have come out of hiding due to all that shakin' going
on, I am now scared s___less of thunderstorms on the water, and the boat is
notorious in the harbor for being a survivor. Quite a few boats in the
adjacent mooring field at Old Greenwich were said to have blown onto the
beach.

Now the question - the bilge is apparently divided up into a series of
compartments and on my boat only the starboard one empties into the center
compartment through a 1" hole drilled into the fiberglass divider, there is
water in the compartment to port and forward under the floor just aft of the
V berth. I have been sponging these out, but the skin on my arms is getting
raw and there is still water there. Can holes be drilled laterally in the FG
to make these drain into the center compartment, analogously to the one in
the starboard partition? Then it can be pumped out in the normal fashion.

Thanks

Andrew C
s/v Carmen


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