We currently have an obscene amount of large holes through the hull of our boat.  It’s time to get that fixed up! Unfortunately (as usual) we’re waiting on parts so 2 of the holes just have to stay there for the time being, but the other **6** holes got fixed today! On practically all of them, the old sealant had dried out almost to a powder and no longer sealed.  On half of them, the hole that was drilled was an oval shape and allowed the fitting to wiggle around, so it wouldn’t seal if you ever tried to move the valve handle (which you do every time you get underway…).  The poor fitment meant that we had to make backing plates for all of the thru hull fittings to give them more surface area to seal to and a smaller hole to slide into. Some of the locations got upgraded from a nut to a flanged fitting! Fancy!

When Jason had the boat in the water for the sea trial, water was actively pouring in through an old bolt hole in the hull.  He plugged it with a dowel rod, but now it was time to fix it. There was a screen screwed over the opening at one point in time and for whatever reason, that screen was gone, but no one had bothered to patch the holes!  This spot will be the new supply for our watermaker and it requires the same screen.  I bought one with the threaded pipe that sticks through to the inside.  Our plan was to make a large backing plate and screw the screen from the outside, through the hull, and into the backing plate.  Turns out that the material we used was too dense to just screw into like you would plywood and it really didn’t work.  We also stripped one of our fancy screws and had to cut it off level with the fiberglass and tap it back out.  Eventually Jason drilled some pilot holes and we got 3/4 of the screws installed.  They will need to be cut flush with the backing plate before the flanged adapter can be installed.  Guess we get to run to the store tomorrow!

Most of these thru hulls will still be used, so I spent some time cleaning up the threads and inspecting the valves and fittings that we removed.  One piece was 2 90 degree fittings with a valve in the middle that went from the master bathroom sink and out the side of the boat.  I had a wire brush that I attacked it with to get rid of what I thought was built up pipe sealant.  Turns out it was actually petrified toothpaste.  On one hand, I’ve never run into anything unexpectedly minty fresh while working on a boat… on the other hand, that’s kind of gross. :p