War On Leaks

One of the most irritating leaks on Pachuca is an on again - off again drip from the port edge of the cabin. The water drips onto the end of the bunk just where the head of a tired sleeping crewman will be. (Grrr!) Arnold and I dropped the middle liner of the cabin ceiling and began testing with a water hose. This section remained dry and the water was coming in just aft of that liner. We removed another smaller panel and located the leak. The "turtle" or "garage" that houses the sliding main hatch has two drain holes that will allow water in as well as out. Also, water can find its way into this section through gaps around the sliding hatch where it enters the turtle whenever there is strong rain hitting the boat from aft or there are sheets of water sweeping over the main hatch during heavy weather sailing. Unfortunately there is a leak between the deck area below the turtle and the interior of the boat.

In my opinion the best way to seal this leak is to remove the companion way instruments and then the turtle and main hatch and make the repairs from above. However, this is too big a project during this cruise so our plan is to allow the area to dry naturally then use a heat gun to make sure that everything is really dry. Then we will use Sikaflex or a similar sealant to plug the leaks from below. We are confident that this will work and success will represent a significant victory in our apocalyptic guerrilla war of survival against these Leftist Jihadist Fascist Tree Hugging Lap Dog Fundamentalist Criminal Communist Terrorist Insurgent Leaks and Their Running Dogs. (Did I leave anything out?)

Two photos are of the port and starboard sides of the exposed section of the cabin ceiling. You can see the opening of the cabin vents, which turned out to be innocent of leaks. The thick black cable is of the old Koden radar unit. We took the opportunity to cut out this section of redundant cable. The round bolted plates are two of the four foundations for cabin-mounted winches. This must be part of the design of an IOR boat to be raced by a crew of strapping young men. Fortunately Pachuca does not have any cabin-mounted winches. I have no desire to ever have to climb onto the cabin and crank a winch handle with one hand while holding on to dear life with the other as sheets of water are sweeping over the top of the boat.

The lower photo shows the problem area, at the corner where the turtle curves down onto the cabin. Below the square of wood is a horizontal band of fiberglass that forms a channel behind it. The water wells up from openings at two corners of the channel and works its way onto the head liner then runs across to the edge of the cabin. We plan to flood these corners with Sikaflex. At the top right you can see evidence of an earlier leak patch-up job which was successful.