Very few Seal 28 posters these days!

I thought I'd mention this little problem that cropped up on my 1977 Mk 1 boat, though, in case anyone else is having it too.

Ever since I got the boat 12 years ago (or is it 13?)I have been plagued by annoying little leaks in the saloon. I get drips from the lamps in the deckhead, in a couple of places on the window surrounds and also quite a flood into the port hand cubby-hole over the galley. Not all the time, but usually after bad weather. Some years ago, I re-seated the mast step, so I knew that was all right. This year I set to to fix the problem! I couldn't decide whether the water was leaking in around the handrail fastenings, or through the hatch garage. I sealed around the hatch garage with Sabatack. Very easy to do, but annoyingly it helped but didn't completely cure. Nothing for it but a full coach roof strip-down. The handrails came off easily enough - no signs of leakage though. I started to dismantle the hatch garage. Top comes off by releasing the four screws (in my case, also after chiselling out the Sabatack!) You now see the sliding hatch and the teak keepers that locate it. Lots of screws to get these off, including carefully removing the plugs that conceal the fastenings. Sliding hatch now lifts out and you can unscrew the Tuphnol hatch slides, leaving the whole garage empty. Having done all this and not finding any problem with the construction so far, I noticed that the garage drains, one to port and one to stbd, were short pieces of some strange plastic tube glassed into the GRP deck from the inside or underneath of the deck moulding. The plastic tubes were crumbling away and allowing water to pass from the garage into the boat, instead of out onto the deck. Having replaced the plastic tubes with GRP tubes epoxied into the structure, My cabin is now dry!
It bothered me that the Sabatack around the hatch garage didn't completely stop the drips but it eventually clicked as to how the water was getting into the garage. My drying mooring is in a creek that ebbs to the South. In bad weather, the boat lies to the ebbtide and then dries out with her bow slightly down, stern to the weather. Rain blows in under the spray hood and onto the sliding hatch and then flows forward into the garage QED!

Good times, Seal 28's!

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Hi Neil
You are right I have not had any notifications of new posts for, it seems years.

I no longer have Aztec, but I had a similar problem with the hatch cover drains. I believe the original plastic tube they had used deteriorates in the sunlight so most of the crumbling damaged part was close to the exit. I smeared a generous amount of Sikaflex around the exit hole and into the tube as far as I could, it fixed the problem and in 14 years I never got around to making a decent job of it like you have.

Mike

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Hi there, Mike

Many thanks for your reply.

Actually in 15th year of ownership! Andiamo still cuts the mustard for us! Admitted, we do a lot of tea, picnics, sun-bathing and swimming (with the occasional sail in the harbour)

Cheers! Neil

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Just read your post I have a couple of places in the main cabin that are damp.

I never thought about the garage leaking so I might have a look at that first.

rather than taking the hand rail off and port side window.

Did you take any photos when you had your apart. If so could I have a copy of them?.

Thanks for putting this in the forum.