JasonJ
Rear Admiral
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2001
- Messages
- 4,163
So life has been good in the short few weeks the beast has been in the water. Actually, if it wasn't for the fact that I have been keeping it in the water, I would have never found this out. At first, there would be a little bit of water in the rear bilge area after running it. I thought that was okay, because the motor throws a weird spray up into the spashwell until it gets on plane, I thought water was coming back down the bilge hose. I would sponge it out, and then check it after the next run, same thing. I started just checking it every evening, and sure enough, there was an increasing amount every day. Not a lot, but enough to make me worry. My thoughts are that with no rain and not running it, there should be no water in the bilge, not with all the damn 5200 I went through sealing bolts and drain tubes.<br /><br />Finally today I had had enough, and pulled it out. Brought it home, looked the entire hull over and finally found it. There was a patch job on the lowest strake that looked like Marine Tex or some junk like that. I had sanded it originally and just left it because it was really on there, and I figured it would never leak. I had not seen any sign of damage from the inside, so I assumed it was just covering a deep gouge. Needless to say, as I stared at this thing, a drip of water dropped out of a tiny hole. It kept dripping, so that was enough for me. The grinder took the stuff off in a hurry, exposing a 6 inch by 1/2 inch gash. The gash didn't go all the way through, but there was just a thin amount of fibers, and they were soaked. I cut the wet fibers out, let the rest of the water dribble out, and ground away the gelcoat 2 inches all the way around in preppeation for a repair. Right above this wound was an area I had intentionally left open in the stringer to flow water, so the wood is fine, the water had just dribbled into the center bilge and slowly collected.<br /><br />Now, My plan is to pick up a small can of epoxy and some roving and epoxy the patch on. I was also considering forcing some thickened epoxy up into the void for some backbone to the patch. What I am wondering is will gelcoat (to seal everything) adhere to the epoxy patch, or am I better off using poly for the patch. Will the epoxy itself seal water out ( I believe it will not) If thats the case, I have the mat and poly to do the patch, but I would prefer epoxy. My original plan was to just let the hull be ugly until winter when I'll sand it and use bottom paint for below the waterline and normal paint above the waterline. That is still my plan. Any thoughts are highly appreciated.
<br /><br />Good Luck!