Fixing Leaks from H35L Genoa Lead Track

[Neil McDonald]

At least two of the bolts securing the genoa lead track (correct name?) to the deck are dripping water internally onto the nav station... and probably doing no good at all to the deck core at the same time!

The obvious fix is to remove and rebed the track, probably using butyl tape. But removing all of the the 24 bolts that secure the track looks to be a huge problem. The track spans across the partition at the head entrance. From within the boat, 15 bolts are readily visible/accessible from in front of this partition and 8 from inside the head compartment. That leaves one bolt that is totally hidden by the end of the head partition.

This seems to be a design issue. Is there a workaround solution to access this hidden bolt?

 

[ghen]

The Hunters have to my knowledge, always have had aluminum plate glassed in under the track and then tapped. Then the bolts are then nutted. The cheap but adequate fix is to remove the errant bolt and seal with 5200. Run it down into the aluminum threads and ignore the backup nut. The track has so many bolts that the safety factor is enormous. The aluminum should hold nicely unless it is corroded too much. In that case I would try a Gudgeon Bros epoxy bedding fix. See "Boat Building with West System Epoxy". I think that is the correct name of the book.