Quote:
Originally Posted by endoftheroad
My concern is that once you begin your circumnavigation you will encounter big water punching away at the bow caprail areas etc especially when the bow/stern are underwater.
Dockside fresh/rainwater is a nuisance but what about saltwater constantly finding it's way into the boat while sailing?
The boat is fairly new to you, there is a good chance that saltwater could pour in during heavy seas.
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There is that possibility I suppose. So far I have gone around the caprails with a hose and checked the inside of the boat looking up under the caprail for
leaks and the only leaks I found were in the Vberth,
Head and the
Salon forward of the
Genoa tracks. The area containing the genoa tracks had no leaks and at one time in the
engine room it appeared there were only a few leaks coming from the Stanchion bases I assume as the leaks are the same on both the port and starboard side.
The chainplates were replaced at some point and we think the caprails around them were also removed, siliconed and replaced.
Since the caulk around the rest of the caprail is so old I figure using the results of the above hose test that simply recaulking the caprail seam will help prevent any future leaking into those areas, if it will ever leak at all. If however there is some leaking in the forepeak or
engine room I'm hoping it will just drain into the
bilge. As long as the main living areas where we keep all of our stuff is dry I'll be happy. If not from the caprails I imagine the inside of the boat will be a salty
environment no matter what.
Of course I want the boat to be as dry as possible but the
work involved with removing the genoa track and the curved caprail pieces at the front and back of the boat isn't worth it since I don't see any evidence of leaking so far.
Stripping the old caulk and recaulking the caprail seam really isn't that hard and at this point would rather do that every 3 years then pull up the rest of the caprails. Of course I'm hoping for longer than 3 years but I like to estimate conservatively.
If the caulk doesn't
work however and we do find rivers of saltwater in the boat we may tackle the issue at that point. At least then we'll have already done half of the caprails. We kind of have a motto to not fix things that aren't broken. If you spent all your time designing and refitting the boat for things you "could see" happening I imagine you'd never leave. We have to go with 80% of the important stuff and hope for the best with the last 20%
Hopes this helps explain our rationale. Good luck with your project!