Opening ports (was RE: [Rhodes22-list] New Guy Bill D.)

[DCLewis1 at aol.com]

Jim,
 
I have a suggestion regarding the water that’s pooling at the bottom of  your 
front hatches with the canvas covers on.  Bill Effros put me on to a  product 
called The Absorber (as I recall).  It’s sold at West Marine and is  
basically a super chamois.  The material really sucks up water.   Automotive stores 
also sell the same product as a car washing product.
 
We had the problem you described.  We’d find water pooled at the base  of the 
front hatches, and once it leaked in.  The leak may have been  resolved by 
our sealing the front hatches carefully and properly, but  I  also cut 2 roughly 
4" wide (dimensions from memory) strips of Absorber long  enough to lay 
across the external bottom of the hatches, rolled each one up, put  one along the 
bottom of each hatch, and put the canvas covers back on.  I  have never found 
water pooled along the bottom of the hatches again, it’s been  bone dry.  I 
think some water is getting under the canvas covers, as it  always did, but that 
the Absorber material wicks it up and it then it  evaporates.  If swabbing out 
the ports is a nuisance, the above might  work for you.
 
Dave