:

Hi, A friend and I built our Cohos at the same time. He experienced the problem you describe in his forward hatch only. It is remarkable how much water comes in through a pinhole or two.

He used the water in the compartment trick to find the pin hole or holes and marked them. He patched with some glass on the inside and that stoped the leak. When he tried just epoxy to fix the hole he had no luck.

Suggest you work at isolating the problems. Patch your pinholes with duct tape and fill your compartments with water one at a time to see if your bulkheads are watertight. You can drive yourself nuts if water is moving from place to place in the boat because you will never know if you have the pinholes fixed or not. I usually ship 4 cups of water in the cockpit just getting in and out of the dang boat! If some of that migrates through a gap in the bulkhead to the forward compartment I may wrongly assume that I missed a pin hole. ARRRGGH!

As soon as you isolate and patch those pinholes it will be a distant memory.

Mike

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I'm getting water in the Coho I just finished; after paddling for about 2
: hours, I get about 4 cups of water in the bow and stern compartments, as
: well as in the cockpit. Because I seem to be getting water in all three
: areas, I suspect that one of the plank seam is not properly sealed.

: Just a quick rundown: - I put a sealing coat of epoxy on the outside hull,
: then covered the hull with one piece of fiberglass cloth, and then added
: three sealer coats (with a roller brush)
: - the inside of the hull also has a sealer coat, one piece of glass (darted
: at the ends) and 2 sealer coats
: - the outside cloth is almost 100% perfect; only a one or two small areas
: (maybe 2 millimeters in diameter) where the cloth was not completely
: wetted through
: - the inside cloth is not as well done, but still, no major lengths or areas
: not completely wetted out
: - although during sanding I sanded through the cloth on the outside in a few
: spots along the chines (maybe 1 or 2 inches in length, those areas were
: later covered in epoxy (but not cloth)
: - the boat is not yet varnished
: - I've inspected the whole hull, and couldn't find any cracks

: After the first trip, I filled the bow compartment with water to see where it
: was leaking; water seemed to be dribbling out of the drilled holes for the
: wire - I had thought I was very particular about filling those holes with
: epoxy.

: I also ran the hose over the hatches to see if the hatches were leaking; they
: weren't.

: So a few questions: - first, if the entire outside and inside of the hull are
: coated with epoxy; how can water be getting through? Could it be in areas
: where the fiberglass cloth wasn't completely wetted out? And if that's the
: case, why is the boat apparently leaking the whole length?
: - can anyone suggest a better way to determine where the boat leaks?
: - What are my options? The outside of the hull now has 5 coats of epoxy - I
: don't simply want to keep adding more weight

: Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

: TIA ED