Possible Leaking Scuppers???????????

MMikeB · #1 04-29-2007, 09:20 PM

I have just taken my boat on a shake down cruise today and it ran great with the new MPI. Only thing is that it was not in the water for more than a hour and it had about a 1/2 gallon to a gallon of water in the bilge when i pulled it out. I had the bottom sand blasted and sealed so i know that is perfect and i know there are no holes in the hull. Where would this water be coming from? Is there something notorious with these potter hulls that i am not aware of. If someone can please help me out with any suggestions, it would be appreciated.

abl1111 · #2 04-29-2007, 09:48 PM

The (4) louvered side air vents drain into the bilge.

If it was rough, water could have gone in there - you could have them facing the wrong way. The forward vents are louvered forward and the aft ones are facing back.

Don't know much about your boat so it's tough to tell.

Blue197320 · #3 04-29-2007, 11:53 PM

i know i have a leaky floor drain on my 20 sf. actually both... i found out one and fixed that... now the other one is leaking so i got some new brass tube and am going to change it out. i had a contstant flow coming in.

oldfielder · #4 04-30-2007, 08:49 AM

If you suspect them, it's totally worth changing the scups the right way now. Do a search and you sill see all of the changes and repairs people have done to them. Last year, I took mine out, widened the holes in the wood blocks while preserving the glass, filled with thickened epoxy, then redrilled and put new tubes in. Total pain in the ass, but worth it.
Check your other possible points of water entry-all thru hulls especially. I had a small crack in the tube for my forward fish box-problem with that one is that it will let water enter between the hull and liner without you ever knowing it. If you did get it blasted, it's definitely time to check the integrity of any old brass running through your hull.
I am running an i/o-I know very few guys that have completely dry bilges. I'm sure they are out there-I just don't know too many of them.
There are times that my hull seems to hold some water down in the v until I get it on a pretty good slope with the trailer jack-any possibility that this was it? WOuldn't that be nice.
Welcome to the mysteries of old seacraft ownership.

Blue197320 · #5 04-30-2007, 05:58 PM

oldfielder,
how did u widen the hole in the wood? did u just drill all the way thru the floor and the block and the bottom of the hull with a bigger drill bit? i need to do something like that so was lookin for an idea.. thanks

oldfielder · #6 04-30-2007, 07:46 PM

It got pretty involved, but first I got the tubes out and let the wood dry out. You're not going anywhere until you do that. There are ways to encourage it with heat. I had some decent rot, but not too bad. To preserve the integrity of the glass, I took some old router bits in my drill and got them up into the hole and then worked on the wood with a sideways motion. The rotten wood in the middle I was able to carefully work out with varying drill bits.
Once dry, I sealed with CPES, then filled the voids with thickened epoxy and drilled very carefully for the new tubes, which are now in a nice epoxy plug. If I had it to do over, I would insert some kind of guide into the drying epoxy. I know for a few others, as well as myself, the drilling was a bit tricky because of the angle. One went well one not so well

If the integrity is still there in your wood blocks, all of this is more than youneed to do.
Ironically, after all the work, now I am thinking of running them out the back

askipper3 · #7 05-01-2007, 04:51 PM

that happened in my seafox 17' water leaking through scuppurs, some caulking does the trick!

Bushwacker · #8 05-06-2007, 04:58 PM

Blue 197320, my 72 Seafari has same disease and I'm in process of replacing scupper tubes. Try Dremel wheel #542, Carbide cutting/shaping wheel. It's about 1.0" dia, so is small enough to fit thru f/g hole. If you use the dremel flex cable extension, should be able to carve out most of the rotted wood. My starboard side was ok, no rot but had 1-2" of rotted wood on port side; got most of it out just by just prying w/screwdriver. Have soaked w/alcohol and will seal w/git rot after it dries out. Have figured out a scheme to fill hole w/thickened epoxy & have pilot hole for redrilling: get a 1/2" pvc threaded union and use belt sander to taper one end down to ~1" diameter so it'll fit into hole from bottom. Screw a 1/2" hard grey plastic pvc riser into tapered union and put into hole from bottom. Will use 2x4 & bottle jack to hold it in. Riser wants to be about 2" long, so end is about 1" below top of hole, to provide access for epoxy. Can use a 1/2" dowel rod into top of riser to center it. I plan to put epoxy mix in an empty caulk tube from BOW and pump it in with caulk gun. Will leave dowel rod in place till epoxy cures, then cut & redrill hole with conventional solid 1" drill bit. I figure the soft core of wood/pvc will help it pilot ok. Haven't actually done this yet, but have thought it over for couple of days and believe it'll work. Will probably try it in next couple of weeks. Good luck!

Blue197320 · #9 05-07-2007, 12:30 AM

bushwacker,
thanks for the idea. it sounds like it might just work like u are saying. u will probably get to that stage before i do so please let me know how that works out for u. thanks in advance

FELLOW-SHIP · #10 05-01-2007, 05:42 PM

There could be a few different reasons you got water in the bilge.

1. Because SeaCrafts are variable dead rise hulls you could have had water in the bilge that ran up front and know really knew it. “If” you looked into the bilge before you got on the road and splashed the boat.
2. Water could be seeping in from the front drain are “If” your boat has one. Would be on the bow starboard side of the boat.
3. Water could be coming in from any of your through hull fittings usually the ones which are underwater.
4. Plus as been stated Could be coming in from the Scuppers. When I re did my boat those scuppers run through a small block of wood under the deck and above the bottom of the hull. Mine were rotten and I replaced them and then re did my scuppers through the bottom of the hull again. But now since I get bored every once in a while I decided to re do my scuppers through the transom with In Line scuppers. Bought the stuff but haven’t install yet.

FellowShip

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