New Sun Cat - Water in Cabin

[kickingbug2]

   you have to admit that it is a poor design at best. im guessing it saved money. what else. thats how companies get a bad reputation. in the end they lose customers and money. a shame

[crazycarl]

"Used a marine adhesive and sealant". I hope you didn't use 5200.

[dbybe]

Interesting.  I was just sitting down to post about the same problem.  I have an 09 and just finished the Salish 100.  One point during the trip I noticed the floor of the cabin was quite wet.  I thought it must have been a spill of my water jug. On the way home I took my daughter and son in law on a sail on the Columbia River.  It seemed that the stern was dragging and that a lot of water was backing up in the cockpit. Later I inspected under the step and flooring under the bridge deck.  (earlier I had cut away part of the floor in the area each side of the centerboard trunk so that I could inspect he deep bilge and the bilge pump intake.)  There was quite a lot of water in this area.  I realized that the boat must have been sitting a lot lower with all the extra water in it.  I will take a look at the drain pipes to see if there are any leaks.  Overall I have been quite frustrated with this boat.  There seems to be one problem after another for a boat that had been "restored" prior to my purchase.  Someone in Port Townsend was really interested in it and at this point I am tempted to sell it. 

[dbybe]

I tested the cockpit drain system by partially plugging the three lower flapper valves in the transom and partially filling the cockpit with water.  I could see that there is a pretty big leak at the center scupper and a very small leak at the port scupper where the pipe enters on the back side.  I will try and access these and patch them.  I have two screw in access ports in my rear deck so that will help.  I will either try Marine Tex or thickened epoxy.

[dbybe]

It is pretty much impossible to get at the back side if the center scupper. I have a 6" deck plate installed at the base of the starboard boom gallows stanchion. This allows me to barely reach it, let alone do any work. It appears about the only way to really work on it would be another deck plate in the transom, but I will not take this route. Two possible options I explore today. One is to sleeve the 3/4" pvc with 1/2" that goes all the way through from transom to the gas locker. This would be bedded in sealant. The second would be to put transom plugs in each end of the tube from gas locker to transom. This would then rely only on the forward cockpit drains but would definitely solve the leakage problem.

[dbybe]

I finally decided to plug each end of the center scupper that leads onto the fuel locker. At the interior I used a rubber expansion plug. At the exterior I used a stainless steel flanged scupper with a screw in plug. I used teflon tape on the threads and after a short test so far the bilge is dry. The end of the bilge had exposed concrete that was under water when the bilge was flooded. I decided this was probably saturated, but worse, may have also allowed water into the keel. At this point there is not much to be done about that. I let it dry for a few weeks. I then glassed in the lower portion of the concrete, leaving the upper portion exposed to continue drying. With an automatic bilge pump (next project) the water should not get deep enough to soak the concrete again. For now I have put the boat back in the marina and use it a while, monitoring the bilge as I go.

[McNemo]

Odd question, but has anyone measured the volume capacity of the Sun Cat bilge? I found myself in a situation where the water was in cabin due to Hurricane Milton and a biblical amount of rainfall. Luckily this happened while the boat was on its trailer. If this had happened while afloat, at what point during the pump-out operation do you start considering this water might be coming from below the waterline?