We get Rain

Since we left Texas, Austin has had a lot of rain.  Lake Travis is up 9 feet and will go up some more this week, but it seemed as if we brought the Texas drought down to Florida with us.  In the nearly two months since we moved onto the boat we have had maybe a tenth of an inch of rain.  That worked well for us since we’re not trying to fill a lake up or care for a lawn.

That all changed last week, we finally had some real rain; about five inches over two days.  That was our first chance to see if the boat had any leaks.  It did.  After a night of pounding rain we awoke to find our salon cushions soaked with water.  I started looking around to see where it came from and Wendy suggested the chainplate holes.

When we had the boat tented for termites we had to take the mast down.  While the mast was down we decided to have new chainplates made.  Chainplates are the attachment points for the wire rigging that holds up the mast.  That has been an ordeal that is still not resolved, but looks to be complete in about two weeks.  Anyway, when we pulled out the chainplates we filled the holes with caulk.  I put lots of caulk in there to make sure it didn’t leak, so I was pretty sure that wasn’t where the water was coming from.

Of course, Wendy was right.  Of the six holes four were letting water into the boat and draining right onto the salon cushions.  We had a break in the rain so I went up and added a LOT more caulk to the holes.  Certainly that would fix our leak problem.  We now had waterlogged cushions in the only area where we have seats.  The cushion on the starboard side wasn’t too bad and we were able to dry it fairly well with a towel.  The cushion on the port side was really soaked through and needed to be pulled out and stood up on its side to drain.  It seemed like a minor inconvenience that we would live through.

We have a small portable A/C unit on our boat.  It is just a little window unit that sits in the rear companion way and plugs into our shore power.  We could have installed a full boat A/C system, but that would have been $5000 and taken up a lot of valuable storage room while this cost us $200 and can be left behind when we finally go cruising.  The only problem with the little A/C unit was that it drained into our cabin.  We kept a big bowl under the drip to catch the water and about once a day we would empty the water.  The A/C helped dry the boat out some and things were looking up, until that evening.

That evening we had some more rain.  Lots more rain; like another three inches.  It turned out that the leaks we had still leaked, not as bad, but water was still getting in the boat.  On top of that the wind shifted and caused another leak by our forward companion way.  So, we had wet cushions and several leaks.  None were bad, but the humidity in the boat was definitely going up.  As the humidity went up the A/C worked harder to remove the extra water from the air and the dripping from the A/C greatly increased.

For the rest of the evening we kept up with the leaks, putting a cup under a drip, towels on the floor where it was getting wet and wiping up anything we could reach.  It wasn’t ideal, but it was working.  When it was time for bed, though, we had a big surprise.  The A/C is right by our bed, just above and just off to the side.  The increase in the amount of water it was removing from the air was too much for the usual drip point to handle.  The A/C was dripping from several places and one of those places was right above a strip of wood trim.  The strip of trim runs across the cabin right above our bed and ends near the center foot of the bed.  So, the water would run across the trim then drop onto the foot of the bed.  The whole foot of the bed was soaked.  Sheets, blankets and mattress were all wet, plus it was still dripping!  We pulled the sheets and blankets off then grabbed a bowl to put under the drip.  I came up with a great idea at that time.  If I drilled a hole into the drip pan for the A/C outside the water would stop draining into the cabin and drain into the cockpit.  I grabbed a flashlight and drill and headed out into the dark.  I propped up the flashlight and started drilling at the lowest point of the drip pan.  I knew I had to be careful not to drill though and hit the coils, so I went slowly.  Slowly, slowly, slowly and POP!  I drilled right though and hit the coils and destroyed the A/C.

Now we had no A/C, leaks, wet furniture, rain and no ventilation.  It was going to be a long night.  For a minute I considered packing up and finding a hotel.  Fortunately, the night was cool and we had small fans, plus our A/C was still a big expensive fan.  I slept on the long, wet salon seat and Wendy slept on the short, dry salon seat.  We woke up early the next morning to head off to Home Depot to get a new A/C.

It all worked out in the end.  The new A/C is a little smaller and keeps the boat drier.  It could be mounted so that it drains outside the cabin into the cockpit.  I drilled a hole in the bottom to help it drain and did it during the day so I could make sure not to ruin it in the process.  The bed dried really quickly and by that night we were back in our bed.  The salon cushion took a little while longer, but it finally dried.  No heavy rain is in the forecast.

One final note: Wendy felt like we were the only boat in the marina that had this problem and was wondering, “Why us?”  When she went up to wash the wet sheets she ran into one of our neighbors in the laundry room who was also washing wet things.  The neighbor said that they had lot of leaks, everything was wet and it wasn’t the first time.  Apparently they have been trying to track down all of their leaks for a while with little success.  Hearing that made Wendy feel a lot better, after all “misery loves company”.