Salt Water leak - only when sailing

[oldmanofthehills]

My stern gland used to leak when sailing and more so when motoring, but not at pontoon. Maybe the vibration was different, who knows? It was not very easy to inspect when underway either. However as nothing like 100L, I ignored it and made sure auto bilge pump was effective but 100l sounds worrying

 

[LadyInBed]

As Spirit (of Glenans) indicated, try to narrow the search area by checking if it only happens on one tack.
I would also temporary stop the forward/aft flow between bilge compartments. Then with luck you will be left with a small area where the culprit is.

 

[DipperToo]

A friend had an interesting leak which transpired to be where the transom (lower part) was bonded to he hull - and when motoring the transom 'join' was just under water and quite a bit came in. It was only found when the large rubber protector which covered the two fibreglass parts was removed that we could actually see the gap. We suspect the boat had had quite a hard knock on the lower transom to have caused something like this.

 

[Rhylsailer99]

Im hoping someone can give me an idea how to find where the salt water is coming from when sailing - with all sea cocks open and alongside in the marina with the engine and prop engaged for 30mins or more its a dry as a bone - when I go sailing in fairly gentle conditions I come back with 10 buckets of salt water in the bilge

Keel and keel bolts are 100%

Is there any recommended technique or maybe I must lift the sole boards whilst sailing and see what happens ?

first thing i would do is close all seacocks when sailing and see if any water comes in then.

 

[Delfini]

It sounds to me like one of your skin fittings above the waterline has a leak when they submerse. It shouldnt be too hard to find if you have so much water coming in

Thats what I think - Ive dried it all out and will bung up the drain holes between bilge sections and then go sailing with the sole boards up - thanks to all

 

[rib]

I sailed a sadler once where the water came up thru the electric bilge pump...took ages to find .

 

[yoda]

Rudder or sealing arrangement? As you sail and the quarter wave builds up and raises the effective water line aft. Known issue with my boat that has a flexible rubber boot between hull and rudder shaft that perishes and eventually splits.

Yoda

 

[ianat182]

Sailing on a Javelin31 yacht some years ago the same problem occurred to us but on both tacks when heeled in any light breeze. The culprit was the cockpit drain. drawing water in when submerged. The simple answer was to reverse the seacock hoses from port to starboard and vice versa and this cured the problem. The Javelin has a counter stern and is immersed when achieving its full length to obtain better racing/rating speed ,than LWL.

ianat182

 

[Delfini]

Just to close this thread - I plugged up each of the bilge section drain holes to keep the water in the leaking section and went out to sea last weekend - we didn’t have time to actually go sailing but saw a small rivulet under the aft bunk under engine in 2-3 foot waves - someone suggested we go into reverse into the waves and the rivulet turned into a small river

Further investigation alongside this week revealed a very unhappy and seriously split hose from the cockpit drains - the split hose wasn’t obvious until unscrewing a protective cover but now with a new hose there is no more leak

I do like the idea of reversing the hoses from starboard to port and visa versa but that’s a job for later

Thanks to all for the advice

 

[Spirit (of Glenans)]

It's great to see a solution that is 'definately' conclusive, which is more than be said for "Line of Duty"