Sealing a leaking clinker

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Alan90

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Hi guys,

Im after a bit of advice as i have very little to no experience in this sort of thing...

Me and a friend have bought a 27ft clinker built motor boat to do a bit fishing during the summer months. We've had her around about a month now but due to the weather havent actually been able to get out and use her. When we picked her up she was on chain mooring and was constantly sat in water, no matter what state the tide was. We sailed her up to her new home approximately 15miles up the coast, no problems and she handled really well in fairly choppy conditions. Anyway.. where she is moored now, apart from about 1hr before high tide and 1hr after, she sits on the bottom of the sea bed.

We've discovered that she now apears to be taking water in through the bilge at the front, not a great ammount but definitely noticeable (auto bilge pump running around about every 20-30mins). Basically, we're after some recommendations for sealing the leak in the short term as we dont really want to have to lift her out the water after just buying her. I appreciate if that's the only thing for it then so be it but i would love to get this summer out the way first.

This is a photo of the bilge and I've circled the two areas where she appears to be leaking from... http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d48/Alan901/2017-05-14_21.35.20_zpssncgmtxl.jpg

As I've said earlier I'm a total novice with little to no experience, so im happy to receive any advice/recommendations anyone might have.

Thanks for the help
 
That is a common place for leaks. It is known as the garboard seam where the first plank sits in a rebate in the keel. Conventionally out is screwed into the keel with caulking between to seal the join. This is also under the most stress, particularly when the boat takes the ground with the tide. The seam has almost certainly leaked before given the sealant on the inside to try and stop it.

Not much you can do about it without hauling the boat and investigating the seam from the outside. It could just need recaulking but equally the fastening could be failing allowing the plank to move. It would help if you could keep the boat afloat as that puts less stress on the joint, but the leak will only get worse over time so at some point you will have to deal with it.
 
Humm would suggest that you could try fitting (screwing) another length of Timber to the other length in the photo and using a good amount of sealant along its length to seal down to the planking; would only be a temporary solution until you can beach her to examine the planking from underneath her and filling in the seams properly.

Would also be worth checking for split cross beams of the stringers that are holding the planking to the center keel just in case if broken they are allowing the first planking to move away from the keel, so causing he leaks.

Should think that your boat could be beached locally so giving you access to the places that the water is leaking into the boat from.
 
We had a similar problem with our 1954 clinker folkboat. She'd always took on some water and I believe old wooden clinker boats always do. After a 4 hour motor into the wind and a steep chop where she kept slamming hard down into the sea the problem became markedly worse. the advice we were given was that most likely the original brass screws holding the garboard in place were likely to be brittle and beginning to weaken.
We were able to use the local drying posts to examine her between tides. As soon as the tide allowed we dried her off with old towels begged from the local charity shops. Any weeping seams are then clearly visible as water continues to ooze long after the rest of the boat is dried off.
The garboard seam was the main culprit and we drove phosphor bronze screws into the weeping areas. Inside we cleared as much debris as we could from the internal seam, dried it off with towels and then poured molten slickseam along the affected areas. This skins over after an hour or so allowing you to paint over with bilge paint.
By the time the tide had come in we'd also managed to antifoul her. So far, a month later, the bodge has worked and she's back to her normal weeping despite being sailed several times a week. Hope this helps.
 
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