saw dust around starboard bulkhead teak sole

[gina girl]

Hi there:  Just purchased this 1980- 23 Com-pac and typical new- bee needs advice.  Boat at my house in the water,permanently,and she seems to be taking on surface water,because of all this rain.  The Bronze portholes have rusted the gelcoat beneath them,what can I do?   Other problems among others,is sawdust type stuff around starboard bulkhead teak sole.  Other major problem is under forward birth compartment is closed in and has to manually be bailed out after rains,creating a lot of moisture and mildew in her, among all the other little leaks. Time restraints has  kept me from working on her.

[MacGyver]

Gina Girl,

The boat tech in me is curious about the water in that forward birth compartment and that sawdust issue.
pictures maybe?

The port hole issue is a simple job, Why the rust? Well, SS fasteners will rust depending on the situation. water in with it will cause it to rust if it cannot dry back out. That is probably what is happening here.
Recommendation is to remove each porthole and put in new hardware and use Life Caulk (Yes, that dirty word you 5200 lovers.....) to re-install.

Mac, why Life Caulk? well, those damned portholes are expensive as hell, and frankly will leak in the future, and to get them out easier use Life Caulk. Take it from me, 14 years Boat Technician experiance talking here. 
Be clean about how you use that life caulk, very methodical about it. You dont want it on fabrics. Just a pain to remove.

IF NEED BE! You could just go around the outside of the ports to seal them up.... but that is a lazy and rough way to fix the main issue.

Post some pics of the other stuff so I can see what is going on there, The others will want that too I am sure, Pictures are NICE 

2 more notes for you. This winter I will be doing a ton of DIY videos to help everyone out on here. Please keep a eye out for them. My wife wants to sail the boat 2 more times, then I get to pull it, AND TEAR IT ALL APART! YAY!!
I am not seperating the boat or nothing, just resealing everything and all this stuff that needs done every milleniom or so.

#2, go to the nearest WalMart and go to the RV section, look for a gallon Ice cream pail that says "Damp Rid" on it. BUY IT.
Read the instructions and put on the boat, watch the little pail suck all that moisture right out of er! We had a cup full of water in the boat, and the 2 days later it was gone. 

Hopefully that helps!
MacGyver

[gina girl]

Thanks: Captain,I will fix my leaks first,and then I will consider the damp rid....

[MacGyver]

Actually I would get the damp rid first, sail that boat till the winter then fix leaks, LOL   

That is what I did this year, my wife didnt give me enough time to fix em all    And I am paranoid about that stuff, but that damp rid had me so impressed I just went ahead and launched it! 

Not much season left.
Unless you dont have a very good place to keep the boat to work on it.   The other thing too is I find a lot of times the water finds places we didnt know about to sit, and that mildew smell sucks......

Another tip to keep the bugs out, get a bar of Irish spring and put it on the boat. 99cents gets 2 bars 
Works like a champ!

Mac

[gina girl]

Hey Cap:   I worked on the saw dust problem by considering the wet mould and dampness which led me back to the bilge. which seams always to have,water even after pumping out   a residual of 2"of water,so I wet vacuumed.  Now I am asking you,my boat teck.,how deep is that bilge under that bulk head.  Could that be the problem?  It is soft about a 1/4" around  that area,so I don't want to tear that flooring up. Finding a small pump to fit in the forward bilge I think is necessary.no matter what.   

[hockeyfool]

   I had in a previous boat a little bit of dry rot ; and when the weather is dry , this stuff will drop down onto floor from
maybe a cored deck area , perhaps the thru-deck holes for your mast wiring for lights and/or vhf.
  Even on this current boat of mine ( an 1981 cp23, almost entirely restored and new stuff ) I found
    a source of dry rot thru the mast deck area which has about 3" total of laminated factory installed marine
plywood as a backing plate for the mast step area : BECAUSE primarily the vhf thru-hole was huge and not
  sealed well at all.
   My VHF cord is massive , about 5/8" -3/4" in diameter, this was on my boat from the previous owner( PO ).
I am the one that cleaned up the mess and did it right ; cut the top of mast deck area,
  total replacement of laminated wood, fiberglass cloth, resin, and resealed all.
   Hopefully my work holds up , it helped that I got instruction from fellow CPYOA guys, the compac boat builder( Gerry Hutchins )
  and the fantastic charity from West Systems' Gougeon   Brothers.

[MacGyver]

Hopefully i am understanding it all right. 
It sounds like to me that water has been infiltrating for some time and keeping that area wet. One of 2 ways it comes in......a conglomeration of exterior leaks from the deck or you have keel damage that is wetting into the keel and leaking into the bilge.
On my 19 i have a single bilge which sits behind the ballast weight.

Do any of the guys with 23s know if there is 2 bilges?

This issue is a hard one to pin down without actually seeing it...

Are you getting a lot of rain?

And hockey, the west system guys are a lot of fun arent they? Great group to talk with. Excellent teachers during the 1 week class i took from them on the use of their products.

I never noticed that captain thing.......lmao.......i have posted a lot on these forums i guess......

Mac

Ginagirl, damp rid still a good idea......and pictures if you can.

[brackish]

To my knowledge there is only one bilge area on the 23, in the after part of the keel behind the sealed ballast under the bridge deck.  All other areas are supposed to be able to drain to that area.  If water is standing in a forward compartment, it is because a drain is blocked.

The first place to look for a leak on a 23 is in the hull to deck seal at the point where the three standing rig chain plates are located.  These work and eventually will leak during a rain or if you put the rail awash while sailing.  To seal them, take the inside trim batten off at that point and renew the 5200 seal in that area, then replace the batten.

Certainly other leaks can occur.  A forward vent that has lost its seal, and anchor line hawse pipe improperly capped, the mast step if it has lost its seal, ports and hatches, etc.

Get inside during a heavy rain period and start hunting them down.

[gina girl]

Well thanks to all of you .....I am slowly making progress,  About that anchor line howse pipe,can you expound on that a little ?Not sure how to fix that ,I thought it was coming thru the opening for the anchor chain,since I have removed the old anchor rope and anchor.   

[gina girl]

I cannot find where or how the drain would be blocked in the v birth Cubbie hole (whatever that's called) that is located between the rope locker and the next space that holds a Porty potty,every rain I have 8oz or more.   are you suggesting there is a blockage in the rope locker?? Please reply, someone. thanks

[hockeyfool]

I would check several things also; do  you have a deck vent or cowling , and is the anchor rode haus pipe cover laying flat in deck,
   and do you have rust on inside cabin through bolts( from deck grab handles, teak eyebrow trim, stantions, or mast wiring ?
   Also , pull off the V birth cushion/boards, get a good LED light, and look way down the bottom of bulkhead walls;
do you see a small hole made there near the bottom of bulk headwall ? That is your drain line hole for the bilge pump .
Needs to be free and clear to drain to lowest spot in boat - keel bilge area.

[NateD]

I cannot find where or how the drain would be blocked in the v birth Cubbie hole (whatever that's called) that is located between the rope locker and the next space that holds a Porty potty,every rain I have 8oz or more.   are you suggesting there is a blockage in the rope locker?? Please reply, someone. thanks

I don't have any "drain holes" through the bulkheads/locker dividers on my 1991. There is some room under the bulkheads/cabin sole for water to flow, but when I have gotten large amounts of liquid in the lockers under the v-berth, they did not fully drain into the bilge. I figured there wasn't enough clearance in some spots on my boat.

If someone can describe where these drain holes are drilled, or post pictures, then adding them would be one option. But the best way to deal with it is to find the leaks.