Shut out again!

Oh well, good intentions shut down by no wind and huge surf. Sunday's scheduled race day was a non-event unfortunately. However, four of us made good use of the lack of wind and fixed the leaking hatches on another boat. Mike, Paul Fletcher, Noel Percival and I spent an hour visiting, wishing for wind and taking apart the hatches on a boat that was less than water proof.

What follows below is a good combination of Mike Rosati's experience on how to fix a boat, Paul Fletcher's suggestion to document how to fix the boat, Noel's photography skills and my posting abilities (and tools).

Step 1: Find the leaky hatch.
Paul described how he took out one of the boats and had to drain the hulls 3 times! So, time to get busy. Under each seat pad is a round plastic hull cover fastened to the hull with six screws. Mike's suggestion to find the leaky hatch was to remove the drain plug and use a kiteboard pump to "inflate" the hulls. Worked like a charm - the leaky hatch started to hiss and was further identified by pouring a little water to see bubbles form around the hatch cover.

Step 2: Remove and clean the hatch
The plastic hatch is held in place by 6 easily removed screws. We used a sharp paint scraper and a knife to remove any dried glue and sand encrusted glue underneath the seat pad.




Step 3: Apply Goop
Once cleaned up apply a liberal bead of Marine Goop (actual glue product) around the hatch opening and place the hatch cover back over the screw holes and screw back into place.





Step 4: Spray adhesive
Next, the seat pad needs to be glued down using a spray adhesive. I used 3M's product that should be allowed to set up for 5 or 10 minutes before pressing the seat pad back in place. Don't be afraid to apply lot's of spray adhesive. Do be afraid of overspray covering your watch face. I'm hoping I can remove the oversprayed adhesive with Goo Gone!

Repeat the above steps for each hatch that you find leaking and don't sail the repaired boat for a day. That should do it for another year!