My Wahoo!

Finally pulled the boat today. I didn’t have any choice really. The POPYC docks are coming out Saturday and the weather is supposed to turn nasty tomorrow with rain and gusts up to 40 mph. My boat was the last one of the docks by several weeks. With the engine problems I’ve had I was worried about getting it out. The options were to put a small, spare outboard on her or try to run her at the lowest possible speed using her own engine, gears a-clattering, and hope that she’d limp into the launch without something catastrophic happening. I’d initially planned to run her to Zioli’s crude but close-by ramp but found out earlier this week that it was blocked off by wintered boats. The Lynn ramp, a mile away, exposed, and with no place to tie up, by myself without help, was out of the question. That left Tim H’s ramp a mile and a half or so up the Saugus River. It was the farthest of the three and being upriver presented an issue if I didn’t time the tides right. But it was the only option left short of a tow.

The day was nice for November, mid 50s and sunny. Wind out of the west and picking up but not too bad yet. I made it over to the slip around noon, 45 minutes before high tide. The idea of mounting the outboard as a kicker quickly proved a no-go as the transom was 2.5 inches at its narrowest point and the 8 horse I brought along wouldn’t open wider than 2.25. So that meant running upriver on the bad engine, with a chance it’d die somewhere along the way. The thought of causing serious engine damage just trying to move a boat a little over mile was not appealing. That it might also leave me victim to the wind and currents was icing on top. I didn’t like the risk but also didn’t have time to to hem and haw: the tide was near high slack and it was a BIG tide…another hour and it’d be pushing out hard to seaward, meaning I’d have to throttle up just to make headway, something I didn’t want to do given the engine problems.

So I loosed the lines and prepared to get underway. At the last moment I realized I didn’t have a life preserver aboard (I’d stripped the boat of deck gear and removed the dock box a few weeks back) so I hunted around in the club dock until I found a kid’s styrofoam boogie board. Not Coast Guard approved but in a pinch it would keep me from drowning.

Pulling out of the slip the engine showed the symptoms that made me releuctant to run it in the first place…on its own it slipped from neutral into forward, and shook and clattered. On the other hand, as it moved along, the problem didn’t get any worse. And with the tide more or less slack and no other boat traffic to contend with we passed under the General Edwards Bridge easily. The half mile to the MBTA railroad bridge was uneventful. Approaching the bridge I eyed the clearance. The eleven foot tide left me five and a half feet. Not much, but enough for my small boat.

The next and last obstacle was the 107/Western Ave Bridge another half mile ahead. This bridge had even less clearance–three feet it looked like as I approached. There’s a drawbridge there but this time of year on a weekday I wasn’t sure it’d be manned. And anyway I hadn’t brought a radio along. If the clearance was insufficient to let me pass I’d have to wait for the tide to drop. And of course with the dropping tide would be the surging current I  didn’t want to fight.

As it was I made it under with about a foot to spare, my head ducked low, looking up at the iron i-beams that even at low speed could likely cave in a skull. Five minutes later I was tied up at the dock. Another boating season over.

Next year, swear to God, one way or another I’m done with problem engines.

Wow, November already. The end of the boating season here in Boston. The weather’s been kind but for how much longer? An oddity–not a single hurricane came up the East Coast this year.

If you’re a regular visitor to the site you may have noticed the lack of posts this summer. Apologies. It was a frustrating season for me and my Wahoo!, although nothing to do with the hull itself. A series of engine problems coupled with a busy schedule kept the boat  out of the water until August. The silver lining is that the extra time the boat spent sitting in the driveway let me tackle some maintenance tasks I’d been meaning to get to. Chief among those was finding and eliminating the leaks from the deck into the bilge.  And I’m happy to say I got pretty damned close. So here’s a write-up.

The Old Water in the Bilge Mystery

Like many Wahoo! owners, I’ve been plagued by water–sometimes a lot of it–showing up in my bilge. The source of the water has been a mystery and a constant topic of speculation among Wahoo! owners. About the only things I knew for sure, because I keep my boat in a salt water slip and because the water in the bilge was always fresh, it that it was  coming in from topside. Any time I hosed down the deck or we got a solid rain I could count on finding a few gallons of water below. Following a three day deluge several years back I must have pumped out at least 40 gallons…that’s 300 pounds of water!

As a quick fix, a couple years back I installed a small pump in the bilge. That gave me a way to get water out. But ultimately I wanted to stop it from getting down there in the first  place. That meant a careful inspection to determine the possible sources of leaks, followed by a whole lot of patching and caulking.

About My Wahoo!

Before getting on to the how-to part of the article, a few points about my Wahoo!. It’s a 1987 16.2 Striper. That’s a 16 foot (thereabouts) tri-hull center console. Several hings about it that may differ from your Wahoo! model:

• It has a sold fiberglass bench seat. The seat spans the width of the cockpit, separating (as far as deck water is concerned) the front and rear of the boat. A drain hole in the deck just forward of the  seat funnels deck water from the front to the sump basin in the rear.
• It has a rigging tube located inside the console. There, steering cables and electrical wires enter the console from below deck through a hole in the floor. The rigging tube (really just a six inch PVC lip) sits over the hole. It’s purpose is to keep deck water from getting into it.

Looking for Leaks

Inspecting the boat, I didn’t see any single major source of water incursion. There wasn’t a big crack in the deck, a gaping hole, or anything like that. That suggested  water  was getting in from any number of smaller leaks: the decks drains, the rigging tube, access ports, screw holes, etc.. Going over the boat carefully and methodically and running some tests, here’s what I found:

• The deck drain system, luckily, did not appear to be leaking. More on this a bit later.
• I found some small holes I’d never noticed inside the rear storage compartments. there were maybe six in all,  and another one inside the sump basin. It looked like they’d been drilled by a previous owner to mount equipment now no longer present.
• The rigging tube had a big chunk missing out of it and several smaller cracks, the result of years of cables being fished in and out.
• Unfastening and then propping up the console, I found that the caulk where it met the deck was in bad shape. Also many of the holes for the securing screws had become enlarged, in some cases two to four times their original diameter, the result of years of pressure on them. Needless to say the screws in those enlarged holes spun freely and weren’t securing anything.
• Everywhere the caulk looked old and in poor condition (e.g., the access ports, the rigging tube, hardware fittings).

Tips on Finding Leaks

Aside from visual inspection, here are some ideas on how to identify leaks:

• Storage Compartments: For compartments, one way to test for leaks is to plug any drain holes and then fill the compartment with water. Obviously, if the water goes down, there’s an issue.
• Rear Cockpit: Because my Wahoo! model has a solid bench seat, I was actually able to eliminate the entire rear cockpit area of my boat as a source of leaks by plugging the drain holes in the sump basin,  filling that area with several inches of water, then looking to see if it went down.
• Deck Drains: I was lucky in that my boat’s deck drain system did not have any leaks. As a result, I don’t have specific advice on how to fix  your boat’s deck drain  system if its contributing to water in your bilge. (If there’s a reader out there with experience in this and you have advice to pass along, please let me know.)  But here are some ideas on how to at least test the drain system for leaks:

• Start with a visual inspection of the flanges at the deck drain holes. Look for cracks, gaps, or a loose fit.
• To test the seal where the flange meets the deck: 1) I plugged the  deck drain hole. 2) I poured about a gallon of water around it. 3) I observed it to see if the water went down.
• To test for a leak in the plumbing below deck: 1) I started with a dry bilge. 2) I pressed the end of a garden  hose tight against the deck’s forward drain hole and then turned on the water and let it run for a minute or two. 3) I checked the bilge for water.
• An alternate way to test the plumbing below deck: 1) plug the outlet hole where the deck drain empties into the sump basin. 2) slowly pour water into the the deck drain end until it backs up, indicating the pipe is full. 3) Observe to see if the water in the pipe goes down.
• On one internet message board a poster suggested a test method that involved pumping smoke into the hull. It sounded too complicated to me, but it may be something you want to research.

The Repair Job

Based on my inspection:

• I filled the old open screw holes I found in the storage compartments and sump basin using Evercoat Formula 27.
• I recaulked all of the access ports (my boat has four) and the screws that secured certain deck fittings that I suspected needed it (namely, the fuel fill and the forward anchor locker)
• I couldn’t find a replacement for the damaged rigging tube so I took it out and repaired it using fiberglass cloth. Then I reinstalled it, caulking well.
• The enlarged holes for the console-to deck screws I filled using Evercoat Formula 27. Then I redrilled the holes to the size I wanted. I also installed screw anchors in all of the the console holes around, caulking them well as I sat them.
• I scraped off all of the old caulk at the console/deck seam, cleaned up the area well, and then recaulked all the way around.
• I found assorted small nicks and chips in the deck. These may or may not have been a source of leaks. I repaired them using either Evercoat Formula 27 or a dab of caulk. Not the most cosmetically perfect solution, but eventually I plan to recondition the entire deck surface anyway.
• I also went over the console itself, caulking seams and repairing holes that would allow water to get inside, and making sure all gauges were mounted snugly.

That was it. Leaving out the setting time for caulk and the fiberglass cloth, the entire project took maybe four to six hours spread over a couple of days. The only part that was a little bit hard was removing the rigging tube, since that required unhooking all of the cables and wires that run through it. Of course, if the tube had not needed repair but only recaulking I could have done that without taking it out. As it was, I used the opportunity to straighten out some of the wiring inside the console that had gotten messy over the years. If you do need to remove a rigging tube, take careful notes on all connections as you unhook them, what wire goes where. Taking pictures as you go is also a very good idea.

A good caulk tip…that I got from my friend Dave. When caulking a place where two surfaces meet (for example, where an access port meets the hull) let the caulk set awhile before tightening things down. That allows the caulk to form a better gasket, whereas tightening down immediately tends to just squeeze most of it out.

Success!

After finishing my repairs (and after all caulk had had a chance to set completely) it was time to test the results. Starting with a an empty bilge I hosed the deck and cockpit down for a solid five minutes. I sprayed in about 35 gallons of water, making sure I got it everywhere on the deck and sides. Prior to the repair work a hosing like that would have put at least two gallons of water in the bilge. And after? The results exceeded my wildest  hopes.Turning on the bilge pump all that came out was about one cup.

In the months since then it’s rained a fair amount and I’ve hosed down the deck many times. Still no water below. The “mystery” of water in the bilge turned out to be a simple one with a simple solution. So if water below has been an issue for you, rest assured that it’s likely an easy fix, not to mention a great winter project for your Wahoo!

Addendum 11/6/14

Pulled the boat from the water today and parked it in it’s winter slip (a.k.a., my driveway). I powerwashed the deck for a solid ten minutes and no water showed up in the bilge. Amazing.