Tracking down leaks

B

boatboy

New Member
Hi, i have a 82 model laser that takes on a significant amount of water when i sail/ tow it behind my larger sailboat. I was just wondering were the common leaks are.
 
gunnels, any scewed fittings, centreboard casing, and the mast step. do you know how to find the leaks?

cheeres ashley
 
Ashley, what do you mean gunnels? if there is a chip in the gunnel, it wouldnt leak into the hull... or did you mean it as in where the gunnels attach to the hull.

Hey Andrew, sprey down your boat with water, than squert some detergent on the hull and cover it inch for inch.... then blow into the drain plug... look for bubbles foarming on the hull. Also... as an emphisis to ashley.... the autobailor screw fitting. With the age of your boat, im assuming that you hav a hatch... they leak sometimes.. esp if you hav a cat/fat bag
 
Mine leaks pretty bad. I took a vaccum cleaner to the stern plug and coated the hull with sudsy water. The area around the cockpit drain is the culprit. The leak was around the brass fitting that goes through the hull. My boat does not have a bailer. I attempted to fix the problem with silicone thinking I could make it through a day of racing. It didn't work. The boat was full of water after two races.
I'll have to fix it with glass or marine - tex soon.
Good luck with your leaks.
-Jack
 
ok the basics for boat building. the laser comes in 2 halves the deck and the hull. they put them together at the gunnels with acme bond/probond (q cells and resin with some other chemicals in it) now thias acme is very strong but if they havent prepared the area very well the acme bond can split so that theres a crack in the midle of the gunnel going leengthways. i will try to put a picture up here of my old boat it had theat problem very bad i ended up diamopndsauwing them apart, sanding them back and re attaching the hull and deck together again. never had the problem agian.

hope that was helpfull
asho
 
Be extremely careful putting a vacuum cleaner on reverse to your hull. I performed that stunt about five years ago on a Sunfish not thinking about how much area I was applying what little pressure the vacuum applied over a large area and about blew the hull up (balooned up badly and further loosened the already loose floatation).

I did a leak check on my laser but had a friend hold the nozzle of the vacuum about a half inch away from the drain plug and had plenty of pressure to find several leaks using a soap bubble test.

Leaked at the seam between the top and bottom at the bow, around the centerboard trunk, and, interestingly, around the drain plug. Realize that the drain plug goes through the top hull AND the bottom AND is underwater all the time (with the exception of deathroll and "snagged on the transom" main sheet flips).

Seal the leaks with epoxy or resin and replace/tighten the cockpit drain and you'll be good to go.

If you have an inspection port, I'd recommend storing the boat upside down with a trouble light (light bulb in a cage on an extension cord) inside the hull. That little bit of energy will help to reduce the amount of moisture in the hull and keep it from freezing and delaminating the fiberglass when it gets cold outside.

Good Luck
 
Yeah I had a massive amount of water enter from where my cat/fat bag is in my inspection port is because of when you put the bag into the inspection port it covers the seal so water leaks...... trust me it is noooo fun. when I brought my boat off water i could hear the water sloshing inside my hull...... just make sure that you check that this doesn't happen to you!
 
Yeah, speaking from experience, I can not reccomend using the vaccum cleaner. When we did the leak check on my friend's boat we heard something crack. We still don't know what it was, but it is not a good sound.
 
If you use anything other then your own lungs for pressurizing the hull, do NOT make a complete seal between the air source and the hull, you need to allow air to escape or you run the risk of literally breaking the hull/deck joint apart in spots.

I usually hold my shop vac about an inch away, and you can feel when the hull is pressurized as the air flow starts to escape out the drain hole.
 
after pumping out 30 gallons of water this weekend :eek: I took a closer look at the cockpit sole and found a lot of cracks
IMG_0633.jpg

IMG_0632.jpg

IMG_0629.jpg

I plan on putting down a layer of fiberglass cloth on the entire floor.
 
those cracks do NOT look good, i've never seen cracks there before. you ,ight hav to get it professionaly done if its strucsheral.

btw, is that you hiking strap? (3rd pic)
 
yeah that hiking strap is kinda old fasion.. geting a new hiking strap is one of those things thats high on the list! but about the cracks check under the rails sometimes the fiber glass can seporate like if what gets in there and freezes. happins alot on rudders and stuff. good luck on fixen it
 
o.. to tell you the truth iv never seen one like that im just alwase used to the normal padded once that come with a new laser! no afence or anything iv just never seen one!
 
iain_CAN165061 said:
those cracks do NOT look good, i've never seen cracks there before. you ,ight hav to get it professionaly done if its strucsheral.
Click to expand...
I'd agree. Check out the drlaser site's articles on cockpit repair. Most of them are for ILCA members only, but if you're not already a member this might be a cheap investment...

http://drlaser.org/frm/plfinstMAfW.html

Cheers,

Geoff S.
 
I tried to repair the spongy cockpit sole by drilling holes and poring epoxy down them( see pic). I thinking about grinding down the gelcoat a little and putting a layer of fiberglass down. would that work?
 
Its a bit hard to tell from the pics but are your sure they are not just stress fractures in the gell coat from the cockpit floor flexing? I would make sure they are the source of your leak before doing something radical like laying glass over the cockpit floor.
 
I've dealed with and fixed spider cracks like those before. No big problem. What I do is take a dremel tool and with a small, cone shaped grinding bit on it drill out the cracks all the way down to the fiberglass. Then fill the cracks with epoxy. They've never come back for me.
 
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