Early June, sailing up to Ft McHenry singlehanded. 9 knots apparent wind and 6.5 knots boat speed w/ just a 110% jib and a cruising main sail!
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Water, water, everywhere...
Water, great for sailing but not so great when it's inside your boat. Shortly after arriving at Oak Harbor I kept finding water in the bilge. Unexplained. I could not figure out where it was coming from and then it stopped. My bilge was bone dry for weeks. Then it came back. And we're not talking a few cups or even a gallon or two. We're talking LOTS of water. Searching through the boat found every accessible part of the hull absolutely dry. So that meant the water was coming in the boat somewhere under the liner. Liners; Satan's contribution to boatbuilding. Easier for the builder and cheaper too, but a total pain in the arse for running cable, plumbing and oh yeah, finding leaks.
After searching to no avail and realizing the leak seemed to be getting worse I arranged for a short haul to inspect the hull. Unfortunately the yard put the strap a little too far forward and crushed my knotmeter paddlewheel and we couldn't find the leak. Good news was the hull didn't have any damage.
Here's where it gets interesting. When they dropped me back in the water I pulled the paddlewheel to put the dummy plug in and I couldn't get it to seal and now I had water seeping into the pan or inner liner. Damn. And the original leak was really gushing water in now as evidenced by the bilge pump running every 7-8 minutes. JB, the yard manager came down w/ some grease to put on the O rings to see if that would seal the plug better. I couldn't tighten the nut so I told JB to try. He immediately realized the entire bloody through-hull was turning! Needless to say we hauled the boat again the next day.
Seems the actual through-hull was not sealed to the hull and the strap that covered it when we hauled the boat the day before kept us from seeing that fact. To further complicate things the hole for the through-hull was located right where the liner started to separate from the inside of the hull. There was just the slightest gap on one side of the hole and this allowed water to spray inside the hull but under the liner. There was no way to see this w/o removing the fitting. Good news is everything is fine and fixed and best of all the bilge is DRY!
Oh, and I have been getting a little bit of sailing in. In fact, for the FIRST TIME EVER, my father went sailing w/ me and some buddies early in July. Hard to believe but in 38 years of sailing we've never been on a sailboat together together.
After searching to no avail and realizing the leak seemed to be getting worse I arranged for a short haul to inspect the hull. Unfortunately the yard put the strap a little too far forward and crushed my knotmeter paddlewheel and we couldn't find the leak. Good news was the hull didn't have any damage.
Here's where it gets interesting. When they dropped me back in the water I pulled the paddlewheel to put the dummy plug in and I couldn't get it to seal and now I had water seeping into the pan or inner liner. Damn. And the original leak was really gushing water in now as evidenced by the bilge pump running every 7-8 minutes. JB, the yard manager came down w/ some grease to put on the O rings to see if that would seal the plug better. I couldn't tighten the nut so I told JB to try. He immediately realized the entire bloody through-hull was turning! Needless to say we hauled the boat again the next day.
Seems the actual through-hull was not sealed to the hull and the strap that covered it when we hauled the boat the day before kept us from seeing that fact. To further complicate things the hole for the through-hull was located right where the liner started to separate from the inside of the hull. There was just the slightest gap on one side of the hole and this allowed water to spray inside the hull but under the liner. There was no way to see this w/o removing the fitting. Good news is everything is fine and fixed and best of all the bilge is DRY!
Oh, and I have been getting a little bit of sailing in. In fact, for the FIRST TIME EVER, my father went sailing w/ me and some buddies early in July. Hard to believe but in 38 years of sailing we've never been on a sailboat together together.
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