Surfski Knowledge Base

Main Repair Page - Fixing Leaks

Larry Goolsby
05/18/05 #265

Ever since my S1-X was blown off the top of my truck and had to be repaired by Sterling, it has leaked an excessive amount. I would paddle on a calm day and gain about 2 cups of water and then paddle on a choppy day and pick up about a quart. I naturally assumed that my scuppers (vents that drain the footwells) were at fault since they were the only passage through the boat interior other than the rudder. I came up with a plan to find plastic or vinyl tubing that was the exact diameter of my drain holes and line the holes by gluing a tube into each hole. This proved to be an easy task since Jude used a 3/8“ drill bit to create these holes. The glue I used was recommended by Sterling and is known as “plastic cement” and is a two-part epoxy.

I tested my my creation last Saturday in the chop as we paddled towards Whiskey rock and came up with just as much or more water as I had ever had. So it wasn't my scuppers that were leaking. My thoughts then turned towards my rudder shaft which can be a problem if the rudder gets hit hard enough to crack the tube that connects the bottom of the boat with the top. the only way to test it's integrity was to create air pressure within the hull and see if there was leakage by coating the rudder canal with dish soap (Peter taught me this trick). In order to create the air pressure, I used my wife's garden sprayer. I simply removed the wand that extends from the spraying handle and inserted the outlet of the spraying handle into the drain hole on my Huki. I then taped a seal around this junction and pumped up the sprayer to a rather high volume of air. I was then able to squeeze the release handle on the sprayer and send all the compressed air into my hull. Lucky for me that there was a leak, otherwise I would have probably blown the deck off of my hull.

The leak turned out to be in the seam between the deck and hull by my seat and hissed everytime I pumped up the sprayer and released it into the boat. The hole was rather tiny and almost invisible but it provided substantial airflow. This looked like another easy fix so I mixed up a little epoxy and fed it into the hole. On Monday, I met up with Reivers for a nooner out of Fairhaven and we headed out through the chop towards Portage Island (damn Northwest wind again). After 1 full hour of choppy water, my boat did not pick up any water. I then tested it again today while doing intervals with Mike H on Padden and again no water. It was that tiny leak in the seam that was causing all of the leakage and my stress. Problem solved, now I am ready for Bowen island.

Larry G