Just to reassure you, yes, I have checked EVERYWHERE for water! Over and over!!! :-D. There is no water forward of the v-berth bulkhead. And I really feel confident now that a hammer blow cracked the liner and probably put a smaller crack in the top of the CB trunk. So the fix will not be hard once I haul. And when I do haul, I will take a LOT of photos of the truck and find the stop bolt. From your description and my observations of the boat construction (beautifully finished with fillets at joints, etc.) I am confident that any water coming in from that crack is only collecting in the tiny voids that you describe. There is no wood in there to rot. So as long as I don’t drill any MORE holes in that liner…the boat should stay dry. Thanks again so much.
On Apr 3, 2022, at 12:03 AM, John Schinnerer via montgomery_boats <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> wrote:
More re interior construction in case it helps...
On my M17 the liner is very solid underfoot (on the 'floor'). And, the hull is lapstrake, so there are going to be small voids running fore/aft under the liner, but the liner is I assume thick enough that spanning that small distance, it doesn't flex measurably. And where the liner is directly over the keel, I don't know if there are still voids or it's solid, can't feel a difference. Not sure if the hull mold has lapstrakes all the way to centerline which are then cut away to install keel, or if the mold is done some other way. AFAIK there is no larger void or separation between my liner and hull. The liner sits on the interior ridges of the lapstrake.
I assume you've checked just forward of the v-berth bulkhead, where you see the inside of the hull itself (lapstrakes and all), to see that there's no water there? I don't recall if that has already been mentioned in this thread.
My floor liner is sealed on both fore and aft ends, meaning the hull under the berth is sealed to the front of bulkhead, and the liner is sealed to the hull at its aft end. So water could not get between my hull and liner - under the 'floor', that is - from either end. But if it were coming in somewhere between those, it could fill and be trapped in the voids between liner and inside of hull. Then if there was a crack in the liner ('floor') as you have, it could come into the interior thru that.
cheers, John
On 4/2/22 23:23, Mary Campbell wrote:
Thank you John. I think we are developing a theory for what happened. Believe me, duct tape is a temporary solution intended only for me to Ascertain if that crack is the sole source of water ingress. If I go down to the boat tomorrow and I find that the bilge is completely dry then I will know that there is only one crack on the inside and I have found it. It will allow me to keep the boat in the water until my contractor comes back and can take a look at the situation because I’d like him to see it when it’s in the water. Then we make a plan. Also I think there is a difference between my boat and Henry Rodriguez’s. On my boat there is no Additional layer of “floor” on top of the liner. The crack is in the liner and when I tap on the liner first a few inches to the left and the right of the crack it’s clear that there is no void beneath that liner… It is solidly attached to the sub surface. So I am strongly disinclined to cut a 3 inch hole in that liner.
On Apr 2, 2022, at 11:03 PM, John Schinnerer via montgomery_boats <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> wrote:
I'll chime in as the owner of an older M17 (#38, 1974) that had leakage into the keel (but not into the interior of the boat).
I am with Jerry on this - you really want to know where the water first gets into the boat, and seal it up there. That will be somewhere on the outside of the boat. One way to do that, as described, is to have the boat on the hard, put a bunch of water inside, and watch for where it oozes out.
Reason being, if you only seal up where it finally reaches the inside, you may be trapping water somewhere between where it enters the hull/keel and where you see it reach the interior at that small crack.
Where you see it oozing into the cabin floor may not be where it is actually coming thru the hull and/or keel. The location you & Jim identify is directly above the keel, and a ways back from the front of the keel, as I read it. Looking at the M17 line drawings, it is an open question if it is still above solid keel, or possibly above the very forward part of the CB trunk.
In any case it's not like most of the rest of the hull where there is just the fiberglass hull layup between outside and inside.
From where your crack is, the water would at least have to come from the top of the CB trunk, IF the crack is above the trunk. If the crack is actually forward of the CB trunk, above the keel, then it would more likely be coming thru from the keel.
I don't know how thick the top of the CB trunk is, or if it's solid all the way to the inside surface of the hull, or if there's a fore-aft seam there that might have opened up.
Jerry and/or Bob, can you describe that part of the boat? How is the CB trunk made and installed, does it have a seam at top?
When I acquired it, my M17 had a leak into the keel, which I only discovered when I saw a damp spot below the aft end of keel (where the stop bolt is) on the driveway some days after hauling my boat out. That was the water that had gotten into the keel, slowly slowly dripping out. It never came into the interior of the boat. There is normally no path for water that gets in the keel to get into the interior of the boat. Or for water in the CB trunk to get in either, besides the hole for the CB pennant.
So my guess would be one of:
1) you've got water getting in your keel, and somehow a crack opened up between keel and interior and it's oozing in.
2) somehow a crack opened up between top of CB trunk and interior and it's oozing in.
It could be a crack in the CB trunk letting water into the keel which then comes thru the crack into the interior - still basically same as 1) above, water getting in keel then thru crack to interior.
How that crack occurred remains a mystery, but sealing it only on the inside I would consider a temporary/short-term response only. If at all possible, find out where on the outside of the boat water first gets in.
Final suggestion - don't use duct tape (for anything, ever, except ducts). It makes a mess if left in place for long and it won't seal out water at any pressure from oozing in. Maybe for a few hours, or days if you get lucky, but then it will fail and you'll still have the duct tape sticky-mess to clean up before anything else will stick.
Jim, I can empathize a bit with how you feel...when I sold my Ensenada 20, years ago, it was leak-free up to end of season and hauling out. When the new owners first splashed it many months later, there was an immediate oozing at the CB pivot bolt. But on that boat, it's all exposed on the interior, the source of leak was obvious, and the repair location reasonably accessible. This one is a bit trickier to diagnose...
cheers, John
On 4/2/22 18:18, Mary Campbell wrote: So glad you have those photos!!!! I am wondering that myself. I was not there when they dropped it, when I got there it was already out and they were prepping for barrier coat. If it was stuck it would have made more sense to wiggle from the bottom, but maybe they sent someone up to encourage it and he did not think to use a block between the hammer and the fiberglass. I will have to wait until the guy I contracted with comes back from vacation next week to have him look at it. He will remember because if two people were working on it and let's say he was down below and sent the other guy up to work from that end, he would remember doing that. I am not sure who actually took it out. I have shown it to the guy who painted the boat and he did not offer any explanation so maybe he was not involved. I did not take the carpet out until Monday when I stepped in and it was wet. And I didn’t notice the crack then because I was paying a lot more attention to the full bilge. The bilge had filled and soaked the carpet so I assumed the water was coming from the back and moving FORWARD. I was focussed BEHIND the hauspipe trying to figure out how the bilge was filling. It was confusing because there were a couple of the lapstrake channels that had water in them so that made me crawl all through the lazarettes. So I had moved everything out of the stern and onto the salon. It took me a while to figure out that the bilge pump was leaking - that allowed me to stop worrying about the hull, and move things back…and then I noticed the crack in the floor and the trickle. I did tighten the clamps on the pump and we will see if that solves THAT problem. Anyway, my intuition tells me that we are on the road to recovery. With the duct tape in place, as long as it holds I am no longer feeling like I need to check the bilge morning and night (but I will until I am sure that the leak has stopped.) When the guy gets back from vacation, I will have him look at it and see if seems to know anything about how the problem started and how to repair it. I have a shipwright (not the same guy) coming to look at it on Monday as well. I understand more about the boat having been forced to caress every inch of the hull that I could reach. I have my boat list of things I need to do to get her ready to sail. The cushion covers are washed and I feel ok about putting them in now that I won’t need to move things around to check for leaks anymore. I still have to figure out where to go from the duct tape. Jerry suggests that I should not seal up the top without figuring out how the water is getting in. Bob seemed to think that I could seal on the top and not make things worse. I am wondering about leaving things like they are for the next couple of months and dealing with it when I haul at the end of summer. I wish I could dissect an M-17 keel/CB trunk/bilge to get a clue about where the water might be running. Anyway, that is more drama than I needed this week! I really appreciate all of your help rallying the troops.
On Apr 2, 2022, at 5:17 PM, Jim Ellsworth <jellsworth603@gmail.com> wrote:
Ok, this is really strange. I went back to all of my photos of Grace (and there are a lot!). When I first got her I stripped all of the cushions and anything else in the boat out to do some deep cleaning and in those pictures I have a couple of the salon floor. Not great quality but from what I can see there was no circle or indentation in the floor as appears now. I can say I know of nothing heavy that ever dropped on the floor and once I ordered that custom rug it has been in the boat 100% of the time except for cleaning. Check the rug to see if there is any sign of that indentation or small tear etc. Also when I packed the boat I purposely put the new boat cover on the floor in case anything fell off the v-berth in transit. Did you observe them dropping the centerboard? I am wondering if they punched the pin out and the board was stuck and they tried to break it loose by pounding on the salon floor? Hopefully not but it is really strange because I thought it was just part of the mold for the floor until I just looked at my pictures. Jim
-- John Schinnerer - M.A., Whole Systems Design -------------------------------------------- - Eco-Living - Whole Systems Design Services People - Place - Learning - Integration john@eco-living.net - 510.982.1334 http://eco-living.net http://sociocracyconsulting.com
-- John Schinnerer - M.A., Whole Systems Design -------------------------------------------- - Eco-Living - Whole Systems Design Services People - Place - Learning - Integration john@eco-living.net - 510.982.1334 http://eco-living.net http://sociocracyconsulting.com