Damp is a constant condition for most boats, or at least a condition that owners constantly must fight with in order to maintain a dry and pleasant aspect aboard their vessel. Everything, understandably, is stacked against a boat being dry (and I don’t mean dry in the alcoholic sense; indeed, the wetter your boat is with water, the wetter you are likely to want it with booze) from being immersed in saltwater to being surrounded by the humid air just above it. Here in Seattle, there’s also the rain, a factor that provides insidious infiltration from areas which might not otherwise be suspect.
Insegrevious used to be a dry boat, despite our rather amateurish (in retrospect) efforts to keep her that way. The bilge stayed bone dry, leaks seemed rare, and it never took more than a decent afternoon with the hatches open to air her out. Rust was rare, mildew nonexistent. It was a rather deceptive introduction to life aboard, in other words.
For the last three years, that airy state of grace has been suspended as we have fought condensation and a variety of minor, but hidden leaks above and below the waterline. I have good reason to believe, however, that we’re well on our way to drying Insegrevious out completely again as our leaky muffler has finally been dragged out and patched this week.
One of the obstacles to drying out most boats is simply that it can be wicked difficult to see where the water is coming from in the first place. This is particularly the case when there are multiple sources involved, because anything you do to identify or narrow them down quickly runs afoul of one of the other problems… or worse, one that may be easily found may be masking others that are less so.
In our case, we knew we had a leak at the rudder shaft, and re-packing it seemed the best solution. The jury is still out on the efficacy of that job, but I also noticed that we seemed to be taking on more water when under power than when under sail. I could see it running forward near the prop shaft (itself which, since I could see it, and see no water coming in there, was a likely suspect early eliminated). It’s true that the hull squats more in the water, increasing the pressure and therefore the leak rate, the faster we go, but the amount of squat for 5 knots under power is the same as 5 knots under sail, more or less, so that left something to do with the engine itself. The least visible part of the cooling system was the muffler, which is located right about where the water was coming from, so that was my prime suspect.
Pulling it was easier than I expected (disturbingly so… almost nothing is holding it in place): my friend Maxx and I undid the hose clamps fastening it to the exhaust mixing elbow on the engine and hauled it out by the exhaust hose leading to the transom. Sure enough, there was a hole. Unfortunately, it was in the seam between the body and the end. Knowing that neither a new muffler nor an expensive repair job were in the budget for this summer, I had prepared to limp along using some muffler repair tape, but it wasn’t going to work on an edge.
Fortunately, Maxx has a wire-feed welder, and even more fortunately, it was right up the road at our friend Torrey’s garage. A quick trip, four or five tries, and the muffler was holding water again. A fresh coat of engine paint to help keep the corrosion at bay, and hopefully we’ll be good for the summer at least.
Tucking it back in place was only slightly more difficult than pulling it out. A full test of the weld and our re-clamping is waiting on the compartment drying out, so we can tell if any additional water is being introduced. With the weather as it’s been, nothing is drying out too fast. But it will eventually, and then it’s on to the next leak, on our eternal quest for a dry boat.
The caption on the muffler photo above seems to have been mis-typed… “heroically above and beyond the call of duty while still fitting with a meager budget welding job”… or something like that… is what I am sure it was supposed to say.
Oops, you’re right, my fingers must have slipped.