Replacing 336 Holding Tank

[rachelmackenzie]

Excited to report that we had a 1995 336 surveyed today! One of the issues reported was a corroded holding tank that the surveyor recommended replacing before sailing. I have not been able to find information about this repair. Has anyone done it? Should we do it ourselves or try to get the current owners to do it? Big job? Worth negotiating on the price?

Other issues included water in the rudder and a previously repaired crack under the port settee.

Thanks!

 

[petersea]

Yes... get the currect owner to repair or adjust cost. I thought the 336 had a plastic tank so surprised to hear corrosision but maybe that year had metal. Replace with a plastic one and my bet is all the hoses are bad also at 20 plus years old. If you are fairly mechanical inclined you can do this job youself but parts alone can cost in the hundreds (my guess is close to $500 new tank, fittings and hoses)and boat yard labor will make about a grand or more, ball park guess it repair/replace.
Water in the rudder can be expensive to fix if you have the yard do it. If you are handy and have the time you could do it yourself by drill holes and letting water drain ,rudder dry and fill holes but most people let it dry out over the winter. My guess is that a new rudder will be needed sometime in the near future. New rudders can get expensive (upwards of $1000 to $1500) plus installation and paint cost. Again this is something a "handy " owner could repair or replace.
The "previously repaired" crack depending on what it is can be no big deal to major with out knowing what was / is cracked. I will assum it is some tabbing and will also assum it is still repaired so not a big issue. What was cacked ???
Good luck with the boat I had a 1996 336 and really liked it !

 

[rachelmackenzie]

Exploring the option of putting a flexible holding tank inside the old tank instead of removing the aluminum tank. Experience with flexible tanks? Are they really as odor proof and reliable as a rigid tank?

 

[Rick]

Rachel here is a quick and dirty pic of my replaced holding tank. The back wall in the 336 comes completely out! I will respond to your email asap. Should be able to give you some more info.

This is a 30 gallon tank, some hose, a hole saw, and some specific parts. Not a hard job at all... really.

Before and after

 

[robertsapp]

That's interesting, yours is the first mention I've heard of an aluminum holding tank in a '95 336. Ours is poly. It's an odd trapezoidal shape. Wonder why yours ended up being aluminum? Regarding the rudder, if, once again, yours is like the other 336's of that time period, the rudder shouldn't have any metal parts inside to corrode. Hunter worked with Foss to develop an all composite rudder, including a composite rudder stock. So the water in the rudder is sort of academic - normally it would be bad news, but I don't really think it hurts these rudders any. Your call on whether you can live with it or not. I'll happily stand corrected if someone has a strong opinion otherwise.

 

[rachelmackenzie]

Rick--thanks for the pictures! We were unclear of the access to the tank; this doesn't look bad at all. The next thing to see is how the tank is actually attached to the boat. To answer your other questions there is a Y-valve and the boat has a freshwater toilet. Very curious that we have an aluminum tank though.

Robert--we are in a cold climate (northern Vermont) so we were thinking the water might be more problematic due to the freezing and thawing each year. We haven't seen the official survey yet, but it doesn't sound like the rudder is the biggest problem. The holding tank and the repaired crack are the top two issues right now.

 

[Rick]

Freshwater is logical. Didnt notice your on a fresh water lake. Very very good. No dead seacritters although would be interesting to note if that is still a player drawing lake water. The aluminum tank has to go! It will corrode because like the fuel tank, it is most likely on rubber strips which are attached to the fiberglass shelf and the tank itself. They used an adhesive which did not play nice with alluminum. The Ronco tanks are affordable and they make them in every frickin shape you can imagine.

The crack under the settee. I assume it is cosmetic. Does it present structural issues when sitting? Storage? A good glassman ( actually Robert Sapp is.. I have seen his work!) should be able to take care of that.

Actually Rachel, I will get to your email this afternoon and I am going to CC a copy to Robert. I have his also. Did you take any pictures of the boat? Between he and I, we have pretty much ripped the 336 to the stringers. Might be able to help there. Just things that have presented themselves to us since we have had ours.

Cheers and hope it works. The 336 is really a great boat.

 

[rachelmackenzie]

We did take quite a few pictures although I don't think they've come off the cameras yet. This is a long shot, but do you know Bob Peters from MA? We have found his name on a number of items in the boat and I know he posted here about Pilgrim--the boat we are looking at.

 

[robertsapp]

Rick - you're still referred to as "boat buddy" at our house because of all the help you gave us when we first bought Eagle.

Rachel, forgive me, I live in Florida and sometimes forget that people live in places (voluntarily even) where the water gets hard in the winter. Yes, pretty sure there is still foam inside that rudder, so it probably would be a good idea to drill and drain it if it's flooded to prevent expansion cracking. But it shouldn't cause any corrosion issues, which is one of the biggest sources of rudder failure. While we're talking rudders, you should have an emergency tiller, looks like a piece of pipe with a bend in it, in one of the cockpit lockers. Check to see if it fits the rudder stock. They apparently didn't always do a good job at finishing out the inside of those composite rudder stocks - we need to take a dremel to ours to remove some stray glass so that the emergency tiller will fit.

As Rick says, pretty simple to get to the holding tank, just remove the screws from the teak battens that hold the rear bulkhead in place, and remove the bulkhead. You should see your holding tank in the aft starboard quarter, and the fuel tank in the aft port. If your tank is of the standard size, it will be narrower than the one in Rick's picture, but probably a bit longer fore to aft, and trapezoidal in shape (sort of a triangular tank with one point cut off.) The fuel tank will be a mirror image. On our boat, the holding tank is just held in place by a wooden batten on either side of the tank that's screwed to the fiberglass liner underneath, but if your is aluminum, it might be mounted more like our fuel tank, which has an angle bracket welded to the inboard and outboard sides and screwed to the fiberglass liner. If you open your starboard lazarette and remove the access cover at the bottom, you should be able to shinge a flashlight in and see the tank and make out how it's mounted. There will of course also be several hoses attached to it. If you decide to pull it and remove it, or the fuel tank, I recommend removing the rear cabin door first. The tanks will just barely fit through the door frame with the door removed.

 

[Rick]

Rachel all good advice. Please get your pics ready to send! Excited about seeing another 336. I havent seen Pilgrim. Let Robert and I take a look... not to critique.. just see what we see. Pluse another 95 336. We are actually a small community as the 336 only had a three year run.

TY Robert. Hopefully Eagle is getting like you want her.

Cheers

 

[rachelmackenzie]

We'll see when we can even get the boat in the water for the sea trial. The lake is WAY above flood stage and it's still raining. The marina is completely flooded; you can't even tell where the shoreline is. The deal is supposed to be wrapped-up by May 16th, but who knows!

 

[rachelmackenzie]

Are there pictures of Whiskey Chaser and Eagle posted?

 

[Rick]

Rachel I have a document with a lot of pics and stuff that I sent to Robert. Just things we have done to our boat. If you would like I will include them in the email. Other than that maybe just a few in the boat info area.

Cheers and dry out.

 

[rachelmackenzie]

I would love to see it. It would probably be useful as we finish up with Pilgrim.

 

[robertsapp]

We just recently took eight days off and cruised the intracoastal from Navarre to Orange Beach. Here's a picture from that trip.

 

[Rick]

Robert she is looking great. What sort of setup is the for the dinghy? Looks pretty cool.

Cheers

Also is that a rigid vang I see in the pic? If so why the topping lift? Our main fouled on it alot when changing tack so I took it off and secured to mast.

Hmmmm

 

[robertsapp]

Yes, we have a Garhauer rigid vang. Wouldn't want to be without it. I've never bothered moving the topping lift, we just keep it slack and coil up the excess at the mast. The sail tacks past it fine, it's never hung up. So you like our $10 davits? We bought a Mercury 270 hypalon airdeck, and the budget doesn't allow for davits this year. I was sort of inspired by the Weaver snap davits - we set the dink (we named it Eaglet by the way) on the swim platform lockers, tilt it up, and take a 1/2 inch line from one of the aft handholds on the dink, tie it to the pushpit, down to the swim ladder and tie off again to the grab rope on the lower side of the dink, and then back up to the pushpit and tie it to the tow D ring. It ends up tied to the boat at three points, and it doesn't budge. We'll get some kind of davits someday, but for now, this is working great, and truth is it didn't even cost $10, we just used a spare piece of line.

 

[Rick]

Makes sense. I just didnt like the slack in the topping lift dirtying our already dirty main and clanging on the lazy jacks.

The dink thing is cool. Mine is a big longer but would probably adapt like that easily although we typically tow it behind the boat when at sea. However during the season we leave her inflated and I have a much more jerry rigged system to keep her out of the water when she is in the slip! Interesting the dark clouds in the background. Any problems during a rain with water in the dink? That would definately work as a west coast setup where we rarely get rain.

Cheers