Extra buoyance

Thank you for the information Bob,
Most of us have broad shoulders and can take a knock and you can stand on our toes. Some even have good sense of humor. Thank you for the information. However like 2 other members have mentioned. If you have a very small leak, will the pool noodles soak up water? That is what a lot of boat builders forget. The foam, by a small leak or in my case the drain plug was not plugged and the hull then collect water. Bert

 

No problem Bert. I understand, just my way.

Re the noodles. One son has same noodles in his pool, been floating around for years, seem to not absorb, closed cell. Short term float in most cases?

I don't know what I would use in offshore rig.

I did go out in the small dinghy one day, forgetting to close drain, and sailed for couple hours, before I noticed the boat was acting quite oddly, sort of slow heel, and went in, to find my error. Pulled the noodles to look at them and fine, no water absorbed.

But, in the end, these are boats...even in small lakes safety is paramount. Off shore more so.

I will say that the noodles, to me, seemed far better than the factory stuff, which in one case was waterlogged and stinky, as I said. Miserable job breaking it up and pulling out.

 

Thank you Bob, In my case I bought a hull with seaworthy certificate. The hull looked very good and the person who sold it to me looked decent and told me he had bought a different kind of boat and did not needed the hull anymore. Fair enough, it seemed a good reason for selling. Until I went to weigh the boat at the weighbridge a couple of months later. Then I understood for what reason it was sold. It was totally water logged and like you said very smelly. The cost for removing the deck etc. was too high, thus I drilled a hole (which I needed in anyway at a later stage) placed a pipe in it and started to blow hot air into the hull. It did help, but not enough. Thus I started to blow it from different places. At the end I was getting very close to the official certificate. ( 1kg difference) and called it the day after a half year struggling. I will be looking at your pool noodle and will be getting one. Will do some test in seawater and see whether it will still be non absorbing water after a couple of weeks. Thanks so much. Bert

 

Bert, Sorry to hear. Now, there is a thread on Sailing Anarchy about drying out a hull and if I can locate it, I will post it. It deals more with exterior delam and drying before repairing, but might be some material you can use. I can imagine the fragrances...

Here is the link to the SA thread... http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?showtopic=170963

 

Thank you Bob,
No, don't feel sorry for me, I was too inexperienced to check those things. I am quite happy with the condition as it is at present. That link was indeed useful. One can only learn from the errors one will make. That was one of them, which I have been able to overcome. The boat is now fine. Bert

 

I remember when I was on the pdracer discussion group, there was one fellow who built a pdracer to a set of plans. The plans called for the use of epoxy for its glue joints. For some reason this fellow couldn't use it. I don't remember why. This boat had a dagger board and three floatation compartments, one in the bow and two, under the side decks, in the stern.

One day while sailing he hit a shoal.

The dagger board trunk's seam along the bottom sprung. So too did those of all three air compartments. The boat sank up to its deck, and the skipper had to drag it ashore through the reeds.

I was designing my first pdracer when this happened. Like this fellow, I wouldn't be able to use epoxy. My room mate was ferociously allergic to it. So I rejected the air compartments (called 'air boxes' in pdracer lingo).

I chose, instead, one gallon milk jugs, eight of which would be lashed under the side decks on either side.

I chose them for three reasons:
1.) they were cheap. I could get them for free,
2.) they would be easily removable, so they could be replaced with heavy duty bags for gear storage, and
3.) they each had a handle, which was a perfect attachment point for at least one of the lines that was to hold them in place.

These jugs would provide a little less than 60 lbs of buoyancy on each side. The idea was that after a capsize the boat would offer only a moderate amount of resistance to being righted, and would come up maybe half full of water. The skipper would then re-board by pushing one side under and pulling himself in, over the side deck. He then would sit in the lee side and bail like mad. Even if he failed to clear the boat of water (supposing it sprang a leek during the capsize) he could still get it to shore, if the water wasn't too cold.

I eventually came to thinking that the pdracer wasn't the boat for me as it was short and wide and would be harder to car top (I'm a landless wage peasant), so I came up with a somewhat narrower, longer scow, which would have side decks too narrow for the jugs.

So my next stop was pink or blue construction insulating foam. This was to be made in removable pieces, held on with just a few wood screws. The idea was to remove this flotation at the end of every season and store it inside, so it could never become water logged.

This foam is reasonably cheap, readily available, and can be pieced together to make some pretty space efficient chunks.

 

Lovely story and a good tip. What is a "I'm a landless wage peasant" Either you are very very rich person and live in fear that you get robbed and live in isolation, like some of my cousins, or you have no property to live in and wonder through the world in a car and boat on your own. Which of the two is it? Thanks for sharing your experience. Bert
P.S. we foreigners have to google, but google did not explain what it is.

 

BertKu.

Actually I rent a room in a house.

The senior tenant here pays about 2/3 the rent and runs a landscaping business on the property. His landscaping tools all but monopolize the garage, and most of the yard is taken up with potted plants.

I can build a real small boat, such as a pdracer or a joeboat, and store it on its side in the garage, when not using it. I have thought of keeping it on top of my truck more or less permanently.

The biggest problem is where to build it.

This probably won't happen until I get a place of my own, probably a mobile home and turn it into a workshop. Whether or not I can keep the boat on my lot will be a deal breaker on whether or not I agree to move in.

 

When I wanted to build my boat , a forum member wrote to use plastic electrical pipe and then a plastic sheet over it. I have seen doing that also in Greece. The cost is not that high and as long the boat is build within 2 years, the UV light will not have deteriorated the plastic. Lucky, I was able to make use of a workshop of a boat builder friend of mine. Here a photo of something similar, but that is to keep the water not from running into the boat while stored in front of our house. I have a plastic sheet placed over it. The sunscreen is only 95% water proof. I made the sunscreen from anodized aluminum pipe and then made some corner brackets from stainless steel, where the pipes are mounted onto. The screen cloth is available at all hardware stores. Bert

 

I had a very interesting discussion today with a supplier. He guaranteed me and will give me certificate , whereby the expandable foam he is selling, will not soak more than 1% water up. I am getting a small sample and should expand it to 18 - 20 times. He instructed me to place it in water for a week, of any kind. Sea water, river water, municipality or rain water and I should weigh the sample with a 1 gram accurate scale, which after placing the sample in water and keeping it in water, shall not weigh more than 1%, after a week. What I like to do is to keep it in water for a month and see whether the sample has not soaked up more than the 1%. Ideally it would be better to do it for 3 months, but I need to fill the extensions sooner. He stated, that 10 -20 years ago indeed the foam would soak up water. He apologized for that.

This will solve my problem and I do not have to play around with table tennis balls, plastic Ziploc bags or 5 liter wine bags. Bert

 

Can you post the brand name?

 

The standard water absorption test is 30 days of immersion, which makes me wonder why the supplier suggests a week long test instead. Bert, get a sample and immerse it for a month and let us know how much weight it gains.

 

One point with the A-B expanding buoyancy foam is that when it sets up it has a hard skin which is quite water resistant but if that is compromised it soaks up water like a sponge.

 

It does depend on the foam type. Some are like what Steve is describing, but others are closed cell throughout, in spite of any crushing or breaches.

 

Will try to get it from the supplier. He gets it in 25 liter jars from Cape Town. It maybe a local South African Product. Will try to find out. Bert