If you want to go looking for leaks, the best way I've found is to pressurize the hull and spray/spread soapy water over it. A sponge with soapy water will work. To pressurize the hull, put your spray skirt on the boat and put a hose from a shop vac or something that you can use the output air from into the tunnel of the spray skirt. Wrap something around the tunnel to close it against the hose. This doesn't need to be real air tight, in fact if you do it by hand while someone else soaps the boat it might allow you to modulate the pressure to keep from blowing the spray skirt off. I pressurized a 37 foot sailboat with my shop vac this way and found a leak in the middle of the fiberglass deck. The non-skid dimple matched up with a bubble on the inside at a radius where the cabin house met the deck so there was no core there. Very small hole in a place you'd never look. Good luck, Carey -----Original Message----- From: Dave Kruger mjamja_at_earthlink.net wrote: > Thanks for all the feedback. > > I originally thought sweating was a major factor but some recent paddles > on cooler days with minimal clothing had me just as wet and prompted me > to start thinking more about the problem. Also it is not just me being > wet there is always several multiple sponge fulls of water in the kayak > even when enter/exit is dry from a dock. Mark, I agree you have a significant leak somewhere, and that some of it seems to be coming from/through the sprayskirt. However, the amount of leakage you describe seems excessive for that source, unless your paddle puts a lot of water onto the deck with every stroke. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Sun Dec 16 2007 - 05:26:33 PST
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