What is this stuff: Stay Afloat Emergency Form-A-Plug Leak Sealant

[toddster8]

Actually I believe it’s re-branded plumber’s putty. You can get cans of it at Home Despot or the like for small bucks. FWIW, I used to have a depth sensor attached inside the hull with toilet bowl ring wax. It stuck pretty well for a year. Maybe had to redo it once, in cold weather.

[Minggat]

The toilet bowl wax was my immediate thought as well. One of the first things I brought aboard Minggat 18 years ago. But the one time I had an issue with with water I needed to stop, I broke out the modeling clay. Less messy.

The Nerf football looks like a great idea. Judging by the way other such foam things have been found to crumble apart after time, I will write the date of purchase on it and plan to replace it about the 3 year mark.

BTW, I have also used modeling clay to help me find the best spot for thru hull transducers.

[Morequestions]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

Basic petroleum wax like a toilet bowl seal. Just listen to the man: Lots&lotsa words - no substance, all guff. Pure marketing!

How much does a harbour official get paid for moonlighting like this? Is the man really an employee of a harbour authority, or is he just clawing for credence :-)?

TP

Capt Fatty mentions toilet bowl wax in one of his books and its cheap

[BlackHeron]

Looks like toilet bowl wax to me although the way it came out of the container so easy makes me wonder if it isn't formulated a little bit different or they prepped it special for the video.

Maybe the plastic bucket is coated inside with some special ultra-low friction teflon-like material and that is the reason they are marking up the toilet wax 4000% because of the expensive packaging.

[TrentePieds]

Yes, and the bucket is tapered for just that reason :-)!
TP

[Steve Bean]

I have some pieces of flotation foam from discarded PFDs from boatyard or marina dumpsters. Cheaper than dirt cheap. It's very similar to "Nerf" foam, if not identical. The piece I'm looking at right now measures about 5 to 7 inches wide, by 18 inches long, one inch thick. It's easy to cut with a sharp knife. Not all of the life jackets that I find are made with this type of foam. I've also seen some expensive cockpit cushions of similar foam.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Perna

Can I ask, what is a Nerf style football and how would it help me with a big hole below the waterline?

I just know I'm going to feel stupid when an obvious answer is given ☺

Others posted pics of a Nerf football and the commercial plug equivalent. We had two of each in the rescue I referred to above. Both types were useful. A hole below the waterline is likely to be elongated and irregular. Squishing the nerfs into the cracks from inside or outside will hopefully radically slow the inflow. We also carry a crash blanket. It is a homemade heavy tarp triangle with straps and long lines on the corners. Placing this over the outside after filling the major holes should also help. The goal is to get to the inflow point where the bilge pumps can get ahead of it.

[BlackHeron]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

Yes, and the bucket is tapered for just that reason :-)!
TP

So is the plastic backing "tray" for a toilet wax ring, but if you have ever installed one you know that getting that peeled off can be quite the chore sometimes. Toilet wax sticks tenaciously to everything. There have been times installing a toilet where I was picking that plastic backing off in tattered pieces as I attempted to peel it off, especially in warmer climates.

[TrentePieds]

Don't remember just what the packaging was last time I did one. Wax paper? At any rate I had no trouble peeling. A light dusting of talcum powder in the bucket might do the trick.

TP

[buzzstar]

An item to add to the locker. With it, the black tape, the sealants widely advertised on TV, and a few pieces of thin plywood and some flexible plastic sheets, we might be able to avoid sinking due to leaks and holed hulls -at least if our bilge pumps have the capacity to allow time for the repair. Shipping containers, ala Robert Redford, be damned.

[Aguabago]

I ran into a couple that swears by modeling clay. Said they used it to stop a boat from sinking once. They gave me some of their extra clay, which I haven't used, but it sounds like it would work for certain scenarios.

[SVTwilight]

The video is certainly convincing that it is simply a softwax like a plumbers toilet ring and I already have a bunch of those.

I also carry a range of other complementary items that I hope to never use:

plugs
Great Stuff
plumbers putty (makes it easy to repack the packing gland when placed over the cutless bearing
various pieces of foam, teak, starboard to screw down and hold things in place
collision mat

[hpeer]

Get some wonton soup, save the plastic container. Get some toilet bowl wax. Melt and pour into container. Maybe try to line the container with some cling wrap first to make it come out easy. In a panic just slit the container with a knife.

I’ve used toilet bowl wax twice on small leaks below water line. Worked well both times. I think it’s failing would be a large hole where it would not have sufficient structural strength to resist the water pressure. But if you put some light ply in the outside and wax on the inside it might work.

At my suggestion a friend carried some wax. One Sunday some brand new boater in his new to him boat came into the marina over the jetty. Outboats hit the rocks and almost ripped the transome off. They drove to the lift but were sinking. She gave them the wax they used to slow the leaks until lift operator arrived. Didn’t matter, boat was still totaled by impact. But it didn’t sink.

[Budgetadvisory]

Yep, I’ve used it - it works but I wouldn’t count on it if you plan to leave the boat on a mooring in the tropics, with a strong current, while you go and earn the money to pay for a proper repair. It’s a brilliant product for getting home safe, that’s it.

I put a cold chisel through a 47’ steel hull one day, making a 1” hole. It turned out that about (maybe) 1/3 of the plate around the keel was stuffed due to severe electrolysis and we knew that nothing would bond to it properly so we made a donut of Stay Afloat and stuck it to the back of a piece of plywood about 8” across. I dived under and stuck it on the outside and gave it as good a bash as I could (I might have used a hammer, can’t remember, it was years ago now). Despite it interfacing with old antifoul, the repair held well and got us about 30-40 NM to the yard, the last couple of miles was up a river with a lot of debris and current. It was summer in NZ’s Hauraki Gulf, so the water temp would have varied between 18 and 21 degrees C. It did come free at the end of the journey, but we could have overcome that by screwing another plate to the inside, through the hole.

Prior to that, I’ve used surf wax for years on steel boats. The first place I used surf wax was on the bolt holes left over after I removed an halyard winch from my own cabin top, for rebuilding. I was kinda broke and wanted to sail around the country instead of bothering with it, so i just left the wax in place to plug the holes. On the hottest days, the deck was painful to walk on. I had ice on the deck south of Stewart Island, lost the weather station in a 130kt gust... even rolled at least once (I know, believe what you want - I don’t lie and she was an epic boat), and the quarter berth remained reasonably dry. I checked that wax regularly, scraped it off and replaced it when I felt like being diligent, but it never looked close to failing. Great stuff.

I have another steel yacht now, nowhere near as epic or tank-like as the other, so I just googled Stay Afloat to see if they’re still selling it... found this thread and thought ‘it’s about time I signed up with cruisersforum’.

There we go - my first post... a product endorsement. I have no financial interest in the makers of that stuff, except that I’d trust my rusty boat, which is my home, to it.

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Budgetadvisory.