dagger board stress ?

Posted By: Bob s-v Watermark - Mac26S - Ottawa River - ON
Date: 7/1/08 10:39a.m.

Report: outside forum guidelines

In Response To: Its the ballast tank (Rod)

I am not familiar with the construction of a D at all so this may be an irrelevant point. If the dagger board trunk passes through the water ballast tank is it possible that any previous forces on the board may have caused a crack to develop in this area. I got the impression from a previous post you thought the water might be coming from this area. Would the trunk allow some type of test to be performed ? Maybe sealing both ends of the trunk and putting it under pressure or vacuum to see if it is connected to the water tank, not sure what help that would be ? might give someone else an idea though ?? Another idea that I would try if I had a leak in this area is to place the water tank under vacuum and feed thickened epoxy into the space between the liner and the tank from the galley, port settee and v-berth areas, I might also try using a large syringe to inject some in a few small holes drilled in the liner with a 1/8" end mill or router bit. I did this in the transom/motor well area of my boat with great success. These holes could also be first used with some vacuum to draw the epoxy across the floor and so check to see if it is getting to the areas you suspect. Then apply vacuum to the tank to draw it to the hole. I don't know if there is anything between the liner and tank in this area. I do know there is a piece of 1/4" plywood between the tank and liner from the companionway stairs to the galley and across to each settee. I saw it when Jim Kelly removed his liner from this area to fix a water leak in the tank of his S. One final idea, could the inside of the tank be inspected with a small camera through a waterproof access port (link below) installed under the v-berth ? I have used my small digital camera with flash to inspect areas of the boat I otherwise could not see in the bow and under the aft-berth. good luck, Bob