I had heard the idea about pressurising the inside of your boat and always wondered how it was done. Well today I found out. We have an old pump for pools, inflatable mattresses etc with a nozzle that was a perfect fit for the bung hole. So I connected up to see what would happen arming myself with a spoon and soapy water to find the leaks.
First discover was that the radio pot was not fitted correctly as there were many airbubbles coming out of the seal. The fit of the pot in the mould is so tight that you if you removed all the silicon from the side, there was no seal. Of course this is an area where the water sits and it pours in the boat. The pot came out easily and was refitted with a lot more silicon to provide a proper seal. There was a slight leakage from the bolts through the hull but these were patched up with Vaseline.
What did show up alarmingly were the pin holes which I am able to easily locate now. If only I hadn't rubbed off all the primer.
There were no leaks around the deck by the mast or any air coming out of the mast hole so my fix on that worked well.
Fingers crossed when the silicon has cured I will just have pin holes to fix and then maybe a watertight boat.
Found this follow up to the April fool on the facebook page on IOM sailing. It made headline news. By the way I spoke to one of the administrators and he thought the post was very funny..
