I have a
Jeanneau 51 with multiple
water tanks. One day I noticed a large volume of
water in the
bilge. It tasted fresh, sorta? My
boat is in the ocean (salt) so i figured it was a water tank leak, but which one(s) I have 8! They along with the plumming are hopelessly buried under floorboards, permanebnt furniture and my
galley. Oh great, this is a night mare. How to find the leaking tank? I am
cheap and lazy. I am not going to tear up my
boat to test each tank., and since I have 8, I can afford to bipass a couple. but how to find which one(s)
Solution:
I simply used "food coloring". One color for every two tanks( in my boat the rear
tanks use one filler, the middle starboard uses one filler and the other side uses one and the forward two tanks use a
single filler. Blue, red, green and yellow. I topped off the tanks with coloring added and waited. The offending tank(s) would soon purge their new colored water into the
bilge leaving a colorful trail to follwo or at least a good ide where to look closer. Sure enough, I started to see blueish water in one part of the bilge. And to my hearts discontent, then some green water coming from another area into the bilge! I was then able to narrow down which tanks these colors represented and , in my case I simply bipassed their filler tubes as the tanks were too burried to extract. Keep in mind a leak can be on the top of a tank which means it will only leak a little when full, or more if the leak is lower. Hope this method might help.