Oct 31
Leaky Boat in Seattle Winter
The high winds and the lung butter along with the need to make money after a great summer of sailing have kept me off the boat so far this fall. A few weeks ago, I spent a weekend while Lo Lo was away resealing the windows on the boat. They had been leaking even wit
h a light overnight drizzle. That would not do with the coming winter with wind and driving rain expected.
It was a perfect September weekend in Seattle. After a couple of false starts, I managed to scrape and reseal the 4 windows over the course of the weekend. It took about 10 hours total - way more than I thought it would take, but I got some sun, had a couple beers, and entertained the local gulls.
The first window I took on was tough. The sealant was pretty new and it took a while to get the window frame pried up and another hour or two of scraping to get it clean. I was able to get the rest of the window frames off with my fingernails (probably why they were not keeping any water out).
I'm not a great caulker but I'm a perfectionist so I'm ultimately not completely happy with the result. We could probably use new window frames altogether and could probably stand to re-bed the screws, but after a couple of rains, I didn't notice any major leaks, so I'll call it a success.
For my next trick... I'm currently looking for a trailer to borrow for our boat so that we can haul it out and do some work in our driveway dock like bottom paint and fixing a couple of hull scratches and gouges.
Filed under //
maintenance
sailboat
I'll ask around here about the trailer though and will help if you want it.