Wow, a dry day! So we made excellent progress on our cockpit drains.
First, we fitted the TruDesign through hulls, which the TruDesign seacocks will screw onto. We have followed their advice and epoxied them in (so in theory they are as strong as the hull itself). We sanded back to the gelcoat all around then hole. There is thickened epoxy under the flange and around the thread as it goes through the hull. As the “mushroom” sticks out from the hull we (again as advised) used the thickened epoxy to create a fairing to smooth the water flow. It isn’t brilliant but we have a lot of work to do later and will improve it then.
On the inside the backing plate was epoxied in at the same time.
Then we started on the drain from the cockpit. First, Jane was clearing off the remains of the sound insulation from the bottom of the cockpit floor.
Then I cut away the wood reinforcement so that we can add lips to seal around the new corners.
These are the lips that will be fitted to the cockpit floor.
Then I was making progress on the new corners that get the new drains fitted in them.
These will be both bolted and epoxied into place and around the drain it will be filed to level with the old edge with thickened epoxy. This is roughly what it will look like when done. (but coloured consistently and I’ve now rounded/smoothed the cockpit cutouts.
So, we just have to do all the epoxy work (which will depend on how bad the rain is tomorrow).
Then we can remove and replace the original drains from the front of the cockpit (which will end up connected to these under the floor). They are very solidly glassed in so that won’t be quick and easy to get them out and not have to do a lot of rebuilding.
Sustainable Sailing 