salt water leak

Check your seacocks Frank. I'm seeing more and more leakage around those these days

Thank you both for the input. Regarding sea cocks, possibly from the cooling water intake because that is tucked in next to the fuel tank and a slow leak would be hard to see there, but it is a place were a little water always accumulates. I don't know if it is there because it migrates there during tacks, or whether it starts there and then leaks out into the other areas, but I will look at that one carefully. Similarly the toilet intake is very close to the batteries and difficult to see the entire circumference. I doubt it would be the hull/cock joint anyway because it is so well sealed and faired underneath, but possibly the valve packing. However, this area is the last to get the water it seems to me. The water pump is viewable and I think that a leak there would show somewhere around the engine and end up in the engine well, which is always bone dry. However, it could be on the aft side of the cooling system between the engine manifold and the hydrolift, or from the hydrolift to the exhaust somewhere behind the side boards separating the engine compartment from the cockpit. That would only be visible by removing those boards while under operation. It is a possible. But where would water end up if the lower seal were compromised? Would it get in the boat, or stop at the upper seal? It seams to me that there is a gap between the hull skin and the engine well onto which the upper seal fits. Is this correct?

Thanks Bill. Not the seacocks nor tbe lifting port. This is sea water. And the other day while I may have taken two cups or so from rhe keel well, itook half a bu0ket from under that big floorboard. If it is the lower seal, what is the drill?

Voila no longer has that rubber ring on the outside of the hull. It has been replaced with a fiberglass plate recessed into the hull hull instead. Anyway, it can be removed to expose the same cavity. Then what will I look for? To see if there are 4 bolts or 8? My hull is 166. Say there are 8, how can I "verify" the lower seal. When the boat is in the water, there is going to be more hydrostatic pressure coming up on the seal to induce the leak. It is unlikely that water inside that area will come back out when on the trailer. I'm just wondering what I will actually see up in that small cavity that will show me that the seal has failed or not? It does seem to me that this may be the source of the leak since the water I get does seem to come out from under the upper liner under the engine and drains very slowly onto the boat bottom under the floorboard. I have observed this before with the floorboard out and tried to sponge the water as it came from there. It comes out very slowly and I could never tell whether it originates down there, or was a residual from a leak originating somewhere else. The valves are all fine and the packing around the shafts stay bone dry.

If this bottom seal is leaking, I assume it must be replaced. Does that require pulling the engine out, or does the sail drive separate from the engine and drop out the bottom, or can the seal be changed with the engine/sail drive unit in place? Is this seal a special molded rubber and is it available, or is it a flat piece of neoprene or something that can be cut from a sheet?

One thing I could do is to fill the 1/4 gap between my outside fiberglass plate and the sail drive leg with silicone, effectively creating a third (temporary) seal and see if it still leaks. If it stops, then it would prove the lower seal was the problem. What do you think of this idea?[/IMG][/IMG][/IMG]

Edited by Bill Layton - 16 May 2010 at 9:38pm

Be sure that you've eliminated all other leak possibilities before assuming it's a leak in the motor gaskets! It is a well designed and double secure system and a leak there is unlikely.
My water pump leak would allow water in that moved to under the main cabin floorboards, etc when sailing.