leaky sunfish

65sleeper

65sleeper

New Member
hello, I have an 11 year old nephew who recently had an older sunfish given to him. it had been sitting in the weather for a number of years. so the first thing we did was scrub it down and wax it. then we cut a hole in it and installed an inspection port. wowzers, it was 3/4 full of water, I could not believe it. so we dried it out for a week with the black trash bag taped around the port. found an old sail, got our lines and rudder. rigged it all up last Saturday and took it out on her maiden voyage. It was the most fun we have ever had on the water. However when we got it back in and opened the inspection port. it was half full of water again. we didn't dump it. never had any water over the hull. just spent around 4 hrs sailing in light wind. My question is, 1. how in the world is it taking on so much water 2. how do I check the hull to find out where it is leaking.
Any information will be greatly appreciated because if I cannot solve this problem by next saturday there is a good chance that I will lose my current status as greatest Uncle in the world.
 
To locate the leaks, you want to pressure test it.

  • Drain it out as well as you can.
  • Get it up on a couple of saw horses, or where ever you were working on it.
  • Close up your inspection ports.
  • open the little drain plug hole on the starboard side, but then cover it sightly with some tape.
  • Take a bicycle pump, with the kind of needle used for inflating balls, and stick it through the tape, and then start pumping.
  • (you could use any of several other types of pump to pressurize the hull. I have a small battery powered pump that I use for rafts, and a small inflatable row boat, and it works fine. The kind of air compressor used for tools is probably too much, but the ones used for airbrushes are probably just about right)
  • mix some dish soap with water, and take a brush and start painting the hull with soapy water.
  • Where the water starts sputtering and making bubbles, you have a leak.
  • Take a grease pencil, and mark them - regular pencil will wash right off, since you just covered the boat in soapy water.
I just did this on an old hull yesterday (following directions from either this forum, or the sunfish group on Yahoo, I've forgotten where I read it first), and it worked great. My advice - make no assumptions on where the leak might be. Some pretty nasty looking dings in my hull turned out to be airtight still, while some smaller ones were barely slowing the air down.
 
Depends on what you find. Something as simple as Duck Tape could redeem your Man from UNCLE status for a weekend. Just fix it better after the kids go back to school. Get the test done, post a picture of what you find, we're sure to have a suggestion. ;)
 
Okie dokie, so I bought a air pump that you use to air up air mattresses. stuck it in the drain hole turned it on and painted the fish with soapy water this weekend. the leak was in the mast steep. the bottom had come loose, and it had a fat crack aft that ran top to bottom, obviously I had to get her out on the water for the weekend. so I found a heavy cap off of a spray can that fit perfectly,I put and inch of tub and tile caulk on the top of the cap, turned it upside down and pushed it all the way to the bottom, then I filled the crack. 2 hrs later we were air tight and just a few pounds over our target weight. woohoo. so we sailed all day, and took on no water. needless to say I was patting myself on the back for my ingenuity....to soon I might add. There was a storm coming in and I could not resist getting her out in it to see what she was capable of..long story short..(yeah, I know its a little late for that right?) I got myself into some big wind , had her layed over and I was hiked out as far as I could stretch...I was flying...man what a rush. All was going well then, BOOM. the mast blew over, the bottom broke loose and kicked aft. and the top went for leaving a nice 3" by 5" impression/ crack in the hull.

my question now, is how the heck am I going to fix this?
Is there a kit out there, that you could install like and inspection port?
or am I going to have to become a fiberglass tech?
 
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