July 24, 2017 Hours spent building to date: 3,854
I woke up this morning to pouring rain. Perfect! A great chance to evaluate my progress in eliminating deckhouse leaks.
All boats have leaks. Water will get into the tiniest cracks. I found one over the stove, where water was getting under the outside trim and somehow working its way down to one of the deckhouse beam sockets. A few tiny drops per minute, but during a torrential rainstorm it would make a pretty good size puddle around the stove burners. That one was pretty easily fixed by caulking in back of the trim. I will continue this all around the boat, since there’s some water under the settee opposite the stove that had to have gotten there through the roof, since it’s fresh. You tell it’s fresh by sticking your finger into the pool of greenish, rancid water with a film of solvent on the top, give your finger a lick, and hope your shots are up to date.
The butterfly hatch leak is half gone. If you’ve been following for a couple years, you’ll remember that the hatch has a “foolproof” system of gutters and drains around the perimeter that should drain any water. Unless the fool in question manages to plug all the drain holes with epoxy while installing the base. A drill and hatch sealing tape fixed that, but there are still drips that will have to be sealed in the corners, where it was tough to get enough sealant in the area where the glass lies flat against the sides, but also tips up toward the tip of the “roof.”
The cockpit decks will always leak, since I need access to all the control linkages and hoses below them and can’t glue them shut, but I have really stemmed the tide by adjusting the fit and adding really good hatch sealing tape from a company called Taco. Just a tiny puddle in the bilge this morning, too small for the bilge pump to come on.
Any water that come in through leaks has to go out, and this too has been a priority. I cut a good number of drainage holes between the major compartments when building the boat, but didn’t add any to the stringers, reasoning that water would simply splash out. But Tardis rides so flat that it doesn’t. So I’ve been tearing up the flooring all over the boat adding weep holes, so now everything runs down into the bilge and the puddles have dried up.
Lots of other detail work going on beside leak patrol, including bringing the cabin sole pieces back to the shop for finish, finalizing the helm seat positioning and reworking the engine cover to make raising the motor up and down easier.
Also have been taking the Tardis out for day trips without the bow thruster, but I have time to get her hauled this week.
Here’s a nice video by Mark of Tardis underway when we brought her back from Mystic:
Everything below it is dry, but this is one of the pesky puddles I’ve had to eliminate.
Shining up the cabin sole.
The Tardis Project 
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