deck leaks and prop sizes

Dennis Giraud · Oct 23, 2000

I have 1984 Beneteau First 42 and am looking for what others have done with regards to deck leaks. I am getting rain water leaking into the boat and highly suspect the stanchion bases. The nuts are unaccessable due to being glassed in and under a fabric deckhead. The mounting machine screws just turn without loosening or tightening. I would like to rebed the bases. Any ideas on how to proceed greatfully accepted.I recently replaced my folding prop with a 3 bladed fixed Campbell Sailor.I had a Gori 21x13 2 bladed folding prop that unfortunately threw a blade (electrolysis problem undetected until too late) and I couldn't afford to replace it this year. Campbell props recommended a 17x9 3 bladed (not a typo)prop. They claimed to have 3 other First 42's with it and they seemed to be satisfied. I, on the other hand am completely dissatisfied. I took Campbells word for the sizing and followed their recommendation without checking here first. I have the Perkins 4-108 50 HP with 2.2:1 reduction. What are you doing???Dennis GiraudULTEGRA

Brian Pickton · Oct 24, 2000

Leaks and props

Dear Dennis,First the prop: I've got a 3 blade Maxi prop running off the Perkins 4-108 as well. It's a 17 inch, but I don't recall the pitch because we set it according to Maxi props recommenndations but didn't them measure it. I can tell you that we have been very satisfied with it, especially in reverse. And don't be fooled by that 50 hp. rating, it's actually about 47h.p. at the shaft. Maybe you should have Campbell tell you how to contact the other owners so you can get the information about there "satisfaction" from the source yourself.With respect to the leaking stanchion basis are you sure that is the source? In our case it turned out to be the genoa track. We wound up tearing out the headliner, rebedding the hardware, and installing new liner, and I can tell you that it was just as daunting as it sounds! The loose mounting screws on our stanchions were pried back witha a thin blade and ultimately removed, and then rebeded with Pl 5200. Then we discovered the genoa track leak.There are also some penetratiing sealers available for sealing cracks available from most chandleries, but I have no personal experience with them myself.Good luck on the repair.Brian Pickton aboard The Legend,Rodney Bay, St. Lucia.

Brian Pickton · Oct 26, 2000

Addition

Dear Dennis,In my haste in writing to you earlier (we were going sailing and I needed to get going) I failed to mention that on our stanchions the only machine screw was the one holding the stanchion into the base. A couple of these got stripped out when we moved the boat and they were repaired by pouring 5200 into the base and bedding the stanchion and the machine screw in it. That's held up for the last 5 years. The stanchion bases themselves were not held in by machine screws, but were in fact through bolted, thus the necessity of removing the headliner etc. to repair the leak, which ultimately also involved the genoa track, which also had to be rebedded. I took a look to see if I could find a tube of the penetrating leak sealer I used, but alas it escapes me. I can tell you that I found it at the Steveston Chandlery (before it came under new ownership) which is in your neighborhood and used it to seal a leak around a port light with good success. It was as thin as water and ran right into the crack . It dried with a transparent finish and was nearly invisible. Maybe somebody else can come up with a name for this stuff for you.Here's a thought: what about trying penetrating epoxy if your not going to unbolt the stanchion basis? If you dammed off the area around the toe rail and applied the penetrating epoxy to the bolt heads it just might run right into the trouble area for you. A couple of applications should give enough of a build up to do the trick. Needless to say that is a fast and dirty solution compared to doing the job the hard (and many will tell you) the proper way. I just wish I had thought of that when I was fixing mine!Anyway good luck with it.Brian Pickton aboard The LegendRodney Bay St. Lucia

Brian Pickton · Oct 29, 2000

Eureka!

Dear Dennis'We found it!With the help of another cruiser, David on Sylvester, we came up with the name of the penetrating sealer I was looking for. It's "Tolley's Creeping Crack Cure", which is a penetrating co-polymer sealant. With respect to tightening the stanchion bases I can think of no way to do that that doesn't involve cutting at least a small slit in the headliner to lay a wrench on the nuts. By the way, on our boat they were not covered by a layer of fibreglass since they are added after the hull and deck joint is made, and I was surprised to hear that yours were. I hope the Tolley's does the trick for you.Brian Pickton aboard The LegendRodney Bay St. Lucia