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posted to rec.boats.building
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First recorded activity by BoatBanter: Jun 2007
Posts: 41
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under water repair
tomdownard wrote:
On Dec 7, 3:14 am, "Cornelis Koger" wrote:
My Draco 2500 twincab has been repowered with VW td engines and tunnel
drives of my own design, for which I have added a 1 ft long box to the
stern. In fact it is an extension of the hull that supports the 2 tunnels,
rudders etc.
Although I've spent many hours on my back under the hull laminating and
painting, now that the boat is back in the water, a steady trickle of water
is entering the bilge through one of the holes where the stern tube is
bolted to the stern. The bolts are not visible outside, they are in a grp
walled cavity filled with polyurethane foam.
I would have bet anything that the construction is watertight, but I'm glad
I didn't.
My plan is to locate the hole by pressing a sponge soaked in dye against the
suspected area, with a helper inside who looks for a color change of the
incoming water.
Is anyone familiar with a product or procedure that can successfully seal a
small hole in a submerged object?
there are lots of epoxies that can be applied underwater and will cure underwater. Lots get sold to owners of leaking swimming pools (cannot drain 30,000 gallons of water to fix a small leak) as well as to offshore sailors (I've saved at least one world cruiser that way). You can even do a fiberglass cloth/epoxy repair underwater. Leaks are often fixed with underwater epoxy soaked spong rubber - cram in the void, the sprong rubber swells up, filling the void while the epoxy does the sealing. You can certainly have these it for under $50 total. Easy to fix from the outside when water pressure is pushing everything into the hole. Much much harder to fix from the inside when water pressure is pushing the uncured epoxy out of the way. Email me for more info (disclosure - I own an epoxy company) --
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