Leaking cockpit drain tubes

[Elandra]

Hi all,
I hope you can help. I have leaking cockpit drain tubes, at least on the cockpit sole side. I had water in the bilge so I plugged the drains and filled the cockpit with water and saw water dripping under the cockpit. They appear to be a simple piece of PVC pipe that joins the cockpit low point to the transom. I had a close look with a mirror and phone camera and was a bit suprised to see that there is no reinforcement on the cockpit moulding internal side (I couldn't see the transom end) and that they were probably simply glued in to the rather thin cockpit moulding. The glued has failed possibly from movement and now leaks. If there was decent access the fix would be easy but it is only accessible from the inspection port near the pintles and underneath the cockpit floor if you were a midget. I did try to get up there! I have read as many posts as I could find but the only fix I have found was pushing some sealant into the minute gap between the cockpit well and the tube which seems a rather feeble type of repair and probably not long lasting. Has anyone attempted or know of a better solution to this problem. If there isn't I will probably Dremel around the tubes to enlarge the gap and fill it with epoxy or maybe polyurethane. I may be able to also get a fillet of reinforced epoxy bog on the inside but it will be difficult to the very limited access. Of greater concern is how to fix the transom side as access to the inside of the tube is virtually impossible. Any better ideas?

regards

Andrew

[Ozzie]

The drain tubes are an unfortunate issue Andrew and when water first started appearing in my bilge it bugged the crepe out me till I located the problem. Though it might sound a cheap fix, I have had good results from just putting marine Sikaflex around the cockpit openings. The outside still seems ok. To make it neater I started out using a masking tape circle but after I few years just slapped it on during haulout. Bilge is generally nice and dry particularly since my upgraded storm boards which used to have small leaks when the originals were still in .

You could, I guess, jam a piece of dowel in the tube with dead centre pre drilled with a starter hole and then use an appropriate sized hole saw to get a neat channel outside the tube. Then backfill with epoxy.

Emrys solution to draining the cockpit was the best I’ve seen . He glassed up a connection “tunnel” using the rear foothold in the transom. For heavy weather this would give a quick drain of water. You could then plug the small tubes permanently I suppose. As I recall I made a post once on adjustable drain tubes that were commercially available. I see if I can find it again.

[Ozzie]

https://www.marinetown.com/product-detail/8933079/

Found the above link . USA site but something similar must be available locally. Contact your local chandlery?

You could replace existing tubes with them or plug the existing and instal these in a fresh spot through untouched material.

[Elandra]

I did a leak test today by flooding the cockpit and not one drop of water so am happy with that. Lets hope it continues that way. I suspect there is some movement in the cockpit well when loaded with crew which is likely to break a glue bond after time. For instance I had a creaking noise coming from the cockpit well of my 50 foot Dufour years ago which was caused by a slight movement in the cockpit well when we were rolling along in the trades. Only about a 1-2mm but it drove me nuts as i was trying to sleep in the aft cabin. That was also much heavier built too.

Andrew

[Elandra]

I did a post about the fix but I see it was not saved.

For those interested I used a low viscosity Cyanoacrylate glue (Zap) to fill the very small gaps between the tubes and fibreglass cockpit well moulding until it would not accept anymore. I then managed to get a reasonable size fillet of polyurethane adhesive (Fix 15) around the tubes where they meet the underside of the cockpit well by accessing through the existing inspection port that allows access to the rudder pintles. Yes it was tight and awkward and not visible but by putting a large dollop of glue on the end of my finger and using feel I managed a pretty good job of getting the glue where it should be. Then I used soapy water on my finger to push the glue into a nice fillet around the tubes. A dental mirror confirmed it was sealed all around the tube. It helped too to totally remove the inspection port to increase the available diameter for access and smooth off the sharpish fibreglass edges.

Hope this may help others.

[Ozzie]

Sounds like a solid repair Andrew. Another good reason to have inspection plates in the transom. I had not thought of that type of glue with glass but obviously it would be good for that purpose. I note it is sometimes mixed with baking soda as a thickener but in this case you wanted to get it into the gap. Hope it all works well.

[Peter T]

Hi Andrew. Both my cockpit drain tubes leaked at the joint between the cockpit sole and the end of the polly tubes.
I also had a lot of gel cc oat cracking all around the sides and back end where the sole of the cockpit curved up to the walls of the cockpit. This was caused by whoever built the boat using way too thick gel in those bottom curves. Thick gel in an area that flexes will always result in get cracks. I ground mine back to the raw glass in those corners and then re faired that area using thickened epoxy. In doing that, it gave me great access to the joints of the drain tubes to the cockpit sole. The tubes as far as I could tell were just glued in there, probably with fibreglass resin.
When I had ground mine back, I was able to use a small amount of fine waven fibreglass mat, cutting where the tube holes are so that the mat could be guided into the inside of the tube. Then a coat of epoxy actually fibreglassed the tube to the cockpit sole without restricting the internal dia of the tube. Once set, I just faired it all with the same thickened epoxy. Once primed and painted it looked brand new and has never been an issue after that.
Hope this helps.
Cheers

[Elandra]

Good idea Peter about using light cloth to bond the cockpit sole to the inside of the tubes. Could also do that on the transom side as well which concerns me as very hard to access the interior side of that join. However I resprayed the the transom with gelcoat and spent hours polishing it so will only do that as a last resort.

regards

Andrew

[Peter T]

Yes you are absolutely correct Andrew. Mine however wes good on the transom but had a hole on the cockpit side. Cheers