Hello lovely sailors,
I purchased a used Laser that I'm guessing is from the 80's. It works great, but slowly takes on water on the inside of the hull. When I'm out sailing, after about 30 minutes I can clearly tell that I'm cruising more slowly. After 45 minutes, I can hear / feel the water inside the hull sloshing around. And after an hour, I start to get nervous about making it back home.
My dad and I noticed that the sealing around the top and bottom halves of the hull was falling apart all along the outside rim of the boat. Thinking that the water might be leaking in there, we completely separated the two halves of the boat, scraped it clean, then re-glued it together with some high-tech poxy stuff. However, the leaking problem has not changed a bit.
Our second guess is that there are cracks in the slip that the dagger board goes down in, but there's no way to really get down there, plus we don't know if that's really the issue.
We have an idea that could solve the problem, but need advice from the community. Our thought is to cut a hole in the top of the boat, and fill the entire body with an expanding, lightweight foam. That way, wherever there be cracks, there'd be no room for water to enter. Any thoughts on this would be very helpful! (I'm really hoping I don't have to start over with a different laser).
I purchased a used Laser that I'm guessing is from the 80's. It works great, but slowly takes on water on the inside of the hull. When I'm out sailing, after about 30 minutes I can clearly tell that I'm cruising more slowly. After 45 minutes, I can hear / feel the water inside the hull sloshing around. And after an hour, I start to get nervous about making it back home.
My dad and I noticed that the sealing around the top and bottom halves of the hull was falling apart all along the outside rim of the boat. Thinking that the water might be leaking in there, we completely separated the two halves of the boat, scraped it clean, then re-glued it together with some high-tech poxy stuff. However, the leaking problem has not changed a bit.
Our second guess is that there are cracks in the slip that the dagger board goes down in, but there's no way to really get down there, plus we don't know if that's really the issue.
We have an idea that could solve the problem, but need advice from the community. Our thought is to cut a hole in the top of the boat, and fill the entire body with an expanding, lightweight foam. That way, wherever there be cracks, there'd be no room for water to enter. Any thoughts on this would be very helpful! (I'm really hoping I don't have to start over with a different laser).