Sailboat renovation

Fixing our leaking cowl vent

May 6, 2019 /

During the winter we realized that we had some leaking cowl vents. At least one of the cowl vents were leaking and rain water and melted snow gathered inside the plastic. When the temperature dropped below freezing a crack appeared.

The crack that appeared during winter because of our leaking cowl vent.

Since it was winter when this happened all we could do at the time was to cover it as good as possible and wait for spring. Now it is spring and it was time to fix this! In total we have three vents on deck, and we knew that one of them was leaking. The other two hadn’t caused any problem so far but we removed them as well to re-seal them.

Removing the cowl vent, the wood inside was moist.

We left the vents open for a while so that the surface towards the pipe would dry. That way the new sealing will get a better grip and hopefully last for a long time. The rest of the moist inside will be left to dry out with time. The plastic crack is something that we will fix later when the temperature in Sweden is high enough for plastic work, and right now it doesn’t look promising…

We removed the old screws that holds the vent, and added new sealing on them.
Adding new sealing on the inner pipe.
Making the sealing on the pipe even so that it will cover everywhere.
Adding an extra layer of sealing. We also adding some extra sealing on place where it is possible for water to gather in a pool.
One of the pipes with its new even sealing. Hopefully this will stop leakages.
The cowl vent back in position! 🙂

We also did some cleaning of the galley, which was dirty and has smelled old food.

The sink in the galley before cleaning.
…and after. Still not perfectly white though… Will try to let it be overnight in a soap-bath, but for that we need to make sure that the hoses from the sink are sealed.
Behind the stove, lots of old grease.
Behind and under the stove before cleaning.
After cleaning. We have these really good sponges that are amazing for removing old grease. They use friction to get rid of the dirt, so you just need water and no soap. In many cases they are better than any soap to get rid of stubborn grease/limescale etc.
Behind one of the drawers before cleaning.
After cleaning! 🙂

After the cleaning of the galley we are one step closer to getting rid of the weird smells that we have inside the boat. Next up will be some preparations for the plastic repairs in the cockpit and final fixes for the electrical system. If you haven’t noticed already we have created a Start Here page. Here we will make it easy to overview our renovation and find information of interest.

You May Also Like

DIY autopilot for sailboat – Part one

January 5, 2020

One Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.