There are many possible causes of water in the Mahé, except for the rubbing rail things mentioned. We have some experience......
First step is to taste the water!
Sweet water in the bilge:
-
Shower water
leaks behind the plastic door under the wash basin in the heads.
- Water around the wash basin flows under the cover for the
holding tank and drops down there
- The caulking around the hoses of the heads can be leaking. When you clean the heads with the
shower, as is our custom, water flowed down the outside of the hoses.
- The seal under the kitchen wash basin can be loose or shifted.
- We have had a bad O-ring in the bathroom. This is between the bathroom tap body and the connection hose. Like with other water-system
leaks, the
water pump will run at unexpected moments. We got a lot of water in the hull! The hot water O-ring was broken, snapped; I replace it with a Viton (fluorine rubber) O-ring, this one can handle higher temperatures; I suspected the broken O-ring was due to the hot water temperature
- Last one:
condensation water runs down on the inside of the hull into the bilge, thanks to our lovely North-European climate.
Salt water in the bilge:
- Waves slamming the bridgedeck might get pushed into the hoses of the
bilge pump. I installed one way valves there. To my regret this did not solve the problem, there was another cause.
- Waves hitting the hole in the
anchor locker for the
anchor chain will enter into the
anchor locker, and spray will get into the water tank area. From there it will flow down into the bilge.
- The O-ring on the depth/speed
sensor can leak. I put something called Magic Lube on both
seals, this is a kind of teflon vaseline.
- The clips on the
head seawater hose were never re-tightened after we bought the ship. We came aboard the ship once, after a month or so, and there was 10 cm of brownish water (river, not salty) in the starboard hull. It had not yet reached the floorboards, to our luck.
Water into the
engine room: taste whether it's sweet or seawater!
- High temperature of the boiler (calorifier) will lead to water being pushed out through the
safety vent.
- The hose ties, that were tight when the ship was new, were never re-tightened. Seawater or
drinking water.
- Water (seawater or when
washing the ship) gets around the seal of the
engine hatches. Sit inside, close the
hatch, and see whether you see light from outside. Let somebody spray the
hatch, and look what enters. Improve the seal.
- The seal on the small winterizing cap on the grey plastic
exhaust box tends to leak
- The seawater seal on the seawater
pump of the engine can start to leak.
Water in the bows:
This one I heard from
Fountaine Pajot, we didn't have it but it happened on some ships.
Where the deck and hull meet at the front, on the inside of the hull, there is the point where the horizontal joint under the trampoline meets the vertical caulked joint which runs over the bow.
At that point caulking has in some cases been done insufficiently. Check from the inside with a torch, you might see
salt water traces in that case.
I think we have had most of these at some moment. Just check it often, and play detective: did it rain? Did you have a rough sea? Did you wash the ship? Always try to find it, do not accept ANY water in the ship.
First step would be to check all hose clips, it's the cheapest step in excluding causes.
Keep you bilges dry, so the labels on your wine bottles do not detach!
Oh yes, when you dry the bilge, water might stay behind in the aft part of the bilge which you can not reach it. As soon as you sail, that water might flow forward, leading you to think the problem is not
solved, while it actually is!