water in my Sailfish hull

[signal charlie]

You could make little rudder pedals with that stick...

And for "water ballast" I meant water that was already captured in the foam, not to add water She'll dry out eventually, and by then you'll be ready to take her out and hike out a little.

 

[bhm]

You could make little rudder pedals with that stick...

And for "water ballast" I meant water that was already captured in the foam, not to add water She'll dry out eventually, and by then you'll be ready to take her out and hike out a little.

Yeah, I figured that was what you meant when you talked about it as "non-sloshing" ballast weight.

Can I not alternate between sailing and drying the same boat, if my hull leak from the unwanted rudder bolt is now fixed? With all the topside customization I have been doing on both my Minifish and this Sailfish, I normally like to try each new thing at least once on the water to make sure it works, before going on to the next thing. So my preference would be to keep sailing the Sailfish while I am drying it out and also working on it.

I now have L&VW's muffin fan set up, using the shipping container as a housing, and it blows nice hot moist damp air perceptibly out through the front drain hole, damp enough to make a visible spot of condensation on a piece of metal, so I'm sure it is removing some moisture. Can't I just plug that in when the boat is not on the water, and otherwise continue to sail it normally? Or does even having it out on the water somehow re-dampen the interior and undercut the drying process, even without an actual liquid-water leak?

 

[signal charlie]

She's your boat, you can and should keep sailing, to do exactly what you mentioned, check repairs aka "Leak Test" or "Float Test." She's already passed "Sea Trials" and you are having fun tinkering with her.

If you happen to find more water inside the hull after a sail, just sponge it out. Depending on the amount, it may or may not be worth investigating where the leak is. Boats will only get messed up when their owners leave water inside the hull for extended periods, months or years, as even "closed cell" foam will absorb water if left submerged for months. Yours is not in that category.

Can't I just plug that in when the boat is not on the water, and otherwise continue to sail it normally? Yes

Or does even having it out on the water somehow re-dampen the interior and undercut the drying process, even without an actual liquid-water leak? Most boats make water, unless you live in Arizona. A very small amount of moisture suspended in air could be condensed from the air as a warm hull cools, but that small amount of water will evaporate back into the air with heat vs soaking into the foam.

 

[Breeze Bender]

bhm, you will find that the most common advice on this forum is “Go Sailing!”
Yes, you can absolutely try out your mods and leak test on the water! Have a blast, then sponge out through port if necessary, pinpoint leaks if not already repaired and use fan between sails if you need to lose weight.

 

[bhm]

Nope. The aquarium pump is just for low-cost minimum circulation off-season.

To remove water weight, you'll need one port, and one $10 muffin fan. (Or a duct fan from Home Depot for more "muscle").

"Snaking" a few 45°-angle ducting internally--for maximum circulation--one fan and one duct can work. (Use one hole for intake and exhaust, but "swirl" the fresh air by extending the ducting deep into the hull).

While favorable results can appear right away, it's a slow leaching process to clear all the water.

I couldn't find any precise numbers on-line, so here are mine. With the set-up shown above (3.5 inch 47 CFM muffin fan masked by its box and blowing continuously through a single midships 4-inch port, exiting through the 1/2-inch drain in the bow plus the two 1/4-inch holes in the stern), I lost a little over 8 pounds of water weight in the first four days, or a little over two pounds per day, much more than I expected. I was parking the boat in full sun during the day, but not wrapping it in black plastic as people do with their lighter-colored boats, since I figured that this blue-painted deck was already pretty radiation-absorbent. I could certainly feel hot moist air blowing out of all three exit vents, and on the first day it would even make a visible spot of condensation on a piece of metal. But obviously the rate of transpiration must be proportional to the difference in humidity between foam and air, hence must decrease with drying out, so I expect the rate of drying to gradually decrease from this surprisingly high initial amount.

 

[Breeze Bender]

Yes, the initial loss is always encouraging, just as with humans, you lose a lot in the first week or two, then it is “slow and steady” if you can stick with it.
The blocks take much longer to dry completely. You’ll find that the black plastic will help, even with a blue hull.