Wth all the restoration going on at present I put the question around the FOC "Are your bilges dry\/"
Mine were not. We had stripped and epoxied the hull. Checked for dripping stern glands. Boot is under overall cover so not rain. Bathing platform removed and rebonded; similarly anode fixing studs.
Still we leaked. I had become resigned to this as a great "Don't know" but then it got worse and decided to be a bit logical.
We checked the entire hull interior and finally traced a minute leak to one of the fittings on the fixed trim tabs, It looked fine on the outside but when pulled of revealed soft wood and dripping water.
I wish I had thought of this before.
Another thing I wish I had known
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JohnSK
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- Location: United Kingdom
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Midnight Blue
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As I found to my cost in 2010, when the bilge pumps were working overtime, a common place for water ingress is through the fixings through the hull into the timber structure.
On a H28, I can tell you there are about 350 fixings through the hull. As the hull takes a pounding, these fixings start pumping and you are off along a road of no return. Over the 43 years, water gets in and the wood around the fixing gets soft, the pumping gets worse until the hole is significantly bigger than the screw fixing.
I asked Custom Yachts to replace every fixing in a slightly different location and fill the old holes up when the wood was dry, with epoxy.
Not one leak since.
However, in order for the epoxy to work, the hull has to be dry and that took a very long time. The measurement went from over 75% moisture content to 11% as I recall... and when I launched after a year out of the water, the timber around the shafts and stern tubes had dried out and shrunk and let water by. But that was easily fixed, and dry bilges ever since.
On a H28, I can tell you there are about 350 fixings through the hull. As the hull takes a pounding, these fixings start pumping and you are off along a road of no return. Over the 43 years, water gets in and the wood around the fixing gets soft, the pumping gets worse until the hole is significantly bigger than the screw fixing.
I asked Custom Yachts to replace every fixing in a slightly different location and fill the old holes up when the wood was dry, with epoxy.
Not one leak since.
However, in order for the epoxy to work, the hull has to be dry and that took a very long time. The measurement went from over 75% moisture content to 11% as I recall... and when I launched after a year out of the water, the timber around the shafts and stern tubes had dried out and shrunk and let water by. But that was easily fixed, and dry bilges ever since.