[Rhodes22-list] leaks

[KUHN, LELAND]

I like leaks.  It gives me an excuse to go visit the boat.

I don't get water in my bilge and lazaretto (spellchecker made me do it)
when it rains.  I get it when it rains and blows hard, which is frequent
around here.  I've had it blow in between the door and sliding hatch.
Never amounts to much.  Old salts at my marina have told me that all
boats leak eventually.  Stress on the chainplates if nothing else.

Not to insult anyone's intelligence but my own, but I eventually
determined that water in my lazarete came from the hole for my fuel line
and slot for my electric motor lift belt.  Only happens when it blows
and doesn't fill a sponge.

Lee
1986 Rhodes22  At Ease
Crab Alley (Kent Island, MD)

-----Original Message-----
From: stan [mailto:stan at rhodes22.com] 
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2007 12:25 PM
To: The Rhodes 22 mail list
Subject: [Rhodes22-list] leaks

    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
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