My boat keeps filling with rain water. Where is it getting in? I hear that there is something under the oval deck pads, some kind of access port. Any suggestions?
David you are not alone. Almost all the waves I know do this. Most likely it is the manufacture access holes under the oval deck pads. There is a 3 to 4 inch hole under each pad. I have left mine alone not wanting to replace the pad that would most likey get damaged when taken off. If you chose to fix yours please let the forum know how you did so others like myself can learn. Good luck. Patrick
Thanks for the info. I didn't want to remove the pad since I'm pretty sure you have to destroy it to get it off.
As for the water, how do you get it out? Do you just tip the boat after every rainstorm? On my old Dart 18 which didn't have drain plugs I had a hand bilge pump with a long tube on it to reach down to the "heels" of the skeg design to pump it dry. Do any of you do that? That was a good solution if you have access ports in the rear.
I have installed 5" access ports about a foot in front of each transom. I also just tip and drain, but it is nice to unscrew the port and look in to make sure there is not something blocking the drain hole. Check your mast also as some of them fill up after a rain from where the mast meets the comptip. Can get quite heavy and full.
Open drain plugs during rain can allow water in as well. The slope of the transom allows water to enter. To check for possible water entry points (including the seat area access ports) use an air pressure / soapy water bubble test. Simple and easy.
Thanks, Matt. If the drain plugs let rain in can you close them while in storage? Is there another vent? On my Wave hulls, high up on the inside just under the tramp, there are little white plugs. Are they vents? Something left from construction?
What about re-sealing the ports under the seat pads? Is that routine mainainence? Are there any replaceable parts there? I haven't had the pads off so I can't imagine what these ports might look like. I can't feel anything through the pads.
By the way, my purple deck pads bleed purple dye. Anyone else have a purple butt?
The white plugs you see (opposite side of the hull from just aft of the shroud chain plate) are not vents or through the hull. They cover the molded-in inserts used for the tramp tension hooks on the Classic... each hull is molded with the ability to be a Classic or Club and port or starboard, so inserts are on both sides.
You can close the drain plugs while in storage. At least loosly to keep rain out.
There may be a small vent drilled on the inboard side of the rear crossbar sleeves on each side.
The caps under the seat pads have two functions. They are vents in the mold during the molding process and allow access to drop a second "shot" of material mid-cycle that creates the inner "foam" stiffening layer. The ports also allow us to reach in to add inner reinforcement plates for the tramp tracks. The caps use to be sealed only with hot melt glue, but now have screws holding them in. The hot melt does not give enough over time and sometimes allows a gap / leak. If the seat pads are not well glued... water can find it's way under and through the cap. You can reseal with 3M 5200 or similar. They have gotten better over the years, but Purple pads? Has to be pretty old now.
Seat pads fuzz off bits of color rather than simply leak dye I believe. Years of UV damage is the major issue.
I found this video detailing a port and pad repair. You may not agree exactly with his methods but the video shows the parts and process very clearly. I like the prevoius suggestion of using a bag of sand to hold the pad down rather than the flat concrete block like in the video.
Great look at what’s under the pad .... But a few suggestions....1) Use fresh marine caulk...and not one that has been sitting around the house for a year and comes out in clumps because it has far exceeded its useful life. 2) Don't mix any caulk and contact cement...if you are going to let excessive caulk ooze out around the plate clean up the excess and let it set before putting the contact cement on. 3) It is called contact cement for a reason....never apply contact cement to only one surface...it is applied to both surfaces (hull and underside of pad), kept the two surfaces separated till the glue tacks up and you can touch it with your finger without the glue pulling away from the surface. Then carefully join the two surfaces from the still attached edge with a roller or squeegee until the entire surface makes contact. You only get one shot...once the two surfaces make contact there is no moving or adjusting them...at this point you are finished...go sailing...there is no need to put weight on anything... if you screwed up and miss aligned the pad or got air bubbles you can break down the contact cement with a number of solvents and start all over again...check that the solvent you choose doesn't eat up/melt the plastic hull material...the best way is to do it right the first time.
Again great look at what is going on under the pad...
I peeled back the front of the forward pad like in the video. It was easy to peel back and I didn't damage the pad. I felt around on the rear pad and sure enough, there was another port under the rear deck pad, that one in the very rear of the pad. I ended up peeling up one end of all four pads to expose the leaky ports.
As it turned out, sometime in the past someone had already re-sealed the ports. On the older Waves, Hobie only glued the ports closed. Now they screw them closed. My old 1998 boat now was sporting 4 screws per port. The first port I worked on was clearly leaking since I could press on it and see water and black algae pumping in and out. With the screws removed the port pried out easily. The original Hobie glue was visible as an amber, brittle residue, like old hot glue. The re-seal was done very poorly using some white tub caulk added after the port was screwed down, not even under the edge of the lid! The old amber glue had not been cleaned up so the surfaces did not meet smoothly and the ill fitting and unsealed lid had a lot of air gaps and so it leaked terribly.
I spent a lot of time scraping off all of the old Hobie glue with the blunt end of a file. One hull hardly had any and but the other hull had huge globs and drips like stalactites, It took a lot of chipping to get the hard amber glue off both the lid and the port. There was still some sticky residue so I scrubbed it with "Goof Off" which is xylene in a spray can. Xylene, sometimes erroneously sold as "xylol", is the BEST solvent for contact cement . Finally, I have clean surfaces but it's beginning to rain.
I'm ready to reseal the lids and glue the pads back down. I plan to use 4200 (not permanent like 5200) and Weldwood contact cement on the pads. However, now it's dark, it's raining, my tube of 4200 has solidified (it's only 5 years old), and the Super Bowl is starting. This one will have to wait until tomorrow.
I have a 2001 Wave that has had leak problems. First I glued the pads down with 3M Trim and Gasket adhesive(nasty yellow stuff in a tube that Auto mechanics call Gorilla Snot). That seemed to solve that leak but periodically it would take on gallons of water . I pressured tested it and there were no big leaks. Finally I replaced the port hatches and found there was no sealant, just a rubber gasket. I sealed the new ones with 3M 5200 and no leaks now. I am guessing that sometimes the hulls flexed and opened a gap between the port frame and the hull.
Another Tip -On the Tornado and A Class many people have been just gluing the port frames down. No screws at all on the theory that a screw is just another leak path. On the Wave I put 2 screws in because I was not sure how well 5200 would adhere to the Wave. So far it is holding.
