Investigating water in bilges

[andymcp]

After the last few trips on the water I've noticed that there's a reasonable amount of water in the bilges - after the last daysail there was about a bucketful of the stuff. Sitting on the pontoon doesn't accumulate any, so it seems to be a motion-induced thing.

The boat's coming out the water for the first time soon, and I wondered if there was any advice on obvious things to check? Or indeed if it's easier to check some possible sources before she's lifted out? First time boat owner, so nothing is too obvious a suggestion...... /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[sailorman]

is the mast "keel Stepped "

 

[Habebty]

1. is it salt or fresh water (rain/water tank leak?)
2. Sail drive or propshaft (check shaft packings or saildrive gaiter)
3. check all seacocks and hose connections and condition of jubilee clips.
4. Engine cooling water - check water pump and hoses
5.Sea water entering from anchor locker in rough weather
6. If not obvious fault found - check insurance up to date /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Happy sailing

 

[Pye_End]

If it is a leak then it is easier to locate whilst it is happening, so better to locate before she comes out.

Is it fresh water or salty?

Does it happen when you are taking blue ones over the bow, or flat sea motoring?

If salty much easier if you can hone it down to areas of the boat. Leaks through deck fittings can be hard to find if you have headlinings in the way. Sometimes a process of elimination. Could be something simple like water hose leaking when engine is running.

 

[chubby]

Taste it: if it is fresh it is rain or from the boats fresh water system, if salt from the sea! If it related to the boat being underway, is it influenced by the engine being on, could be from the cooling system or prop shaft: what type of bearing or seal do you have, is it related to the boat heeling under sail? On one boat I had, it had a seawater leak under engine which I eventually tracked down to the stern squating under power and letting water in to a supposedly draining stern locker which had one un sealed screw hole, eventually found by looking in the lockers under way.

 

[Blue5]

Had the same sort of problem but only a few cupfulls of water, still very annoying and finally managed to trace it to the fridge unit condense that discharges via a plastic tube into the bilge, needless to say only used the fridge on trips so it appeared only as a problem when we sailed

 

[flyingscampi]

Checking the shaft seal under power would be the first place I'd look.

 

[andymcp]

Thanks for the replies, I should have pointed out more details at the start:

i) It's salt water
ii) No oil present (the engine moulding has some annoying grooves at the sid which seem to accumulate their own little reservoirs of oily water)
iii) the boat had been lying on a mooring for months before we got her and last weekend I found discolouration in the bilges to around the same levels, so presumably water has been lying there before.
iv) I am inclined to focus on prop shaft and seacocks, but didn't want to ignore any other regular gotchas that others have experienced /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Deck-stepped mast, apparently later Elans were keel-stepped (or optionally so?).

 

[mandlmaunder]

Try running your engine while on a pontoon or in your marina slip if you have 1.
Check all raw water hoses and cooling pump, also check the mixer elbow on the exhaust manifold and exhaust hoses.
Then there is always the ever popular stuffing box.
Have fun.

 

[leomagill]

Spread some chalk dust around and go for a sail, should be easy to trace then.

 

[EdWingfield]

Thanks for No6 Matey, you had me laughing. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[awol]

[ QUOTE ]

6. If not obvious fault found - check insurance up to date /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Or, as a mate of mine found out, check the policy wording. The boat didn't sink but a dripping stern gland + a failed auto-bilge pump flooded the batteries and engine. Neatly covered (or not covered), they claimed, by an exclusion clause.

... and no, it definitely wasn't Pantaenius for whom I have nought but praise.

 

[Racecruiser]

I had an irritating amount of sea water coming in and thought that my new saildrive diaphragm was to blame - turned out to be sea water connection to impeller housing which dripped nothing when the engine was off but a couple of litres every trip when running. An easy and inexpensive fix!

 

[Tranona]

Think you have a saildrive so only engine related source when running will be seawater side of cooling system. Most likely candidate is the antisyphon valve which may be stuck or is not properly connected. On my Volvo installation it goes to the exhaust just above the silencer, but others go into an overflow bottle.

Suggest you check every seawater connection when engine is running.

 

[mikejames]

My boat had an engine retrofitted when it was 4 years old.

I had small amounts of water appearing from time to time and always thought it was the water pump spindle on the Yanmar 1GM. But when I fixed that the water still came.

Also the fixing of the Volvo shaft seal to the stern tube was also suspected and eliminated. This was pretty marginal -there was not enough tube protuding for the seal to clamp to properly. A lot of grinding and I exposed more of the tube.

In the end I discovered that the P bracket was actually not bonded to the hull but only to a bulkhead near it - the polyester resin used had ceased to stick. When the engine ran, the prop shaft vibration would open up the crack and water would trickle in.

 

[dje67]

Worth also be worth checking the rudder shaft gland. The back of the boat will sit lower in the water when motoring - might cause water to enter through a poorly sealed gland.

 

[andymcp]

Thanks again for all the suggestions, today was the first chance to try many of them out.

Completely cleaned and dried the engine bay, then went to dismantle the aft cabin so I could do the same for prop shaft area. On lifting the base of the bed it turns out one of the dry lockers under the berth was half full of water. Spares for engine are kept there, so horribly contaminated with oil. This unfortunately meant the taste test was a) unappealing and b) vomit-inducing when I did try it. No idea if salt or not. It did clear up one mystery though - there is a pinhole drain from this locker into the slots at the side of the engine bay, so this is where the oily water there was accumulating from. Anyway, emptied it all out, dried the whole area and then sprinkled talc powder all around. Switched on the engine, chucked it in gear and left it to run for a half hour. Barely a teaspoon of water from the prop seal, none from the engone or cooling system. But there was a mystery trickle through the powder from somewhere near the stern. Unfortunately the aft under-bed locker runs up and out of sight to the back of the boat.

So, out to the cockpit, empty the big cockpit locker, climb in, peer round back of boat. Two things very apparent:

i) Huge reservoir of water behind rib in bottom of hull. First time the boat leans anywhere, that's heading over the rib and into the bilges.
ii) No signs of wear at all round the top of the rudder shaft.

I'm now guessing that this is pointing to either a deck leak around the back of the boat which fills up this reservoir and then spills into bilge when out and about and heeling or else a leak that only happens when under stress around the rudder. Everything else seems to check out fine.

She's lifted out tomorrow for the spring clean, and a proper dry out. Also going to be blasting with pressure hoses while hiding in lockers and watching for drips. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[andymcp]

Apologies for resurrecting my own thread but I'm on the hunt for advice again.

Having now sorted the seawater leak part, the remaining time on the hard has shown that the leak from the stern into the aft cabin under-berth locker is susbstantial enough to cause concern. After about a week of wet and windy weather on the hard I had to swill out over a bucketful of water from the locker. The trail through the talc I had left clearly shows that the water is coming from somewhere that could best be described as between the base of the hull and the mouldings of the cockpit lockers, from the abosulte stern of the boat. I can't get to the source from the cabin (the locker tapers up out of reach towards the stern and is unfinished at that end), or from the cockpit lockers (the 'wrong side' of the moulding).

Having spent many unsuccessful hours crawling round lockers, cabins and spaces I didn't realise existed I'm struggling to think what's next. There are 2 old screw holes on the transom that need filling - but no way they would let this much in and they would drain into the stern locker, not between the two moulds (if my thinking is correct).

Is there a trade out there that specialises in leak sourcing? Or what would you do next to try and track this down?

 

[paulrossall]

One option might be to fill the locker with water and look to see where it leaks out.