Sealing in Daggerboard Well (Nacra 5.2)

You can try turning the boat over

Wolfman wrote: Hey everyone, I believe I have a leak in the daggerboard well of my Nacra 5.2 where the deck lip meets the hull. How the heck do get access to seal something like that without taking the deck off and getting at it from inside the hull? Can you bend the nozzle of the sealant in a U shape to get in there? Would I be better off using a 2 part epoxy putty and placing it with my fingertips?

Regards,
Dave

Did this on my own cat just a while ago.

You can't reach the seal from the bottom.

You can't fit the cartridge in there, it's too big.

Best way I found was to use your fingers. Put the sealant on the tip of your index finger and hook your finger up to get the sealant up into the seam.

Don't worry about getting any sealant on the gelcoat. You then go back with a paper cloth and mineral spirits...cleanup any areas you didn't mean to coat with the mineral spirits. This solvent won't affect your gel coat.

Of course you need relatively slim hands 🙂

Dan

Thanks. That sounds like a decent idea. Similar to what I was thinking with the epoxy putty.

Regards,
Dave

well you can also make a specialized tool to get it from the bottom.

We have lots of Mystere's here.. and that means ... lots of leaky wells. on more than 1 occasion we have had to seal up a hole in an unreachable area.. thats when we pull out a 3' piece of wood and create an applicator.

Another (horrible) option... is to add a brand new, shinny, inspection port near the repair. This is a lost resort option (well removing the deck lid is THE last resort... but this is close)

Yeah, I was actually considering something along the lines of a 3 foot extension for the caulking tube. 🙂 I can actually reach the underside of the lip with my fingers so I can likely push the sealant or epoxy in by hand. I was just wondering if there was a trick to doing it.

Actually the extra port isn't a horribly bad idea. It may help solve some other issues that have been worrying me with the shroud connections. Definitely not a project I will take on until things progress to a more critical stage.

PS caulk is proably not the correct product to use here..

epoxy is probably best
marine tex could work in lue of 2 part epoxy
sillicone sealant or 3m 5200 may work but can be hard to remove in the event of it not sealing.

I agree with Andrew, use the epoxy to try to seal it up. Only add the inspection port if you can't get it sealed from the outside.

The inspection port doesn't exactly make the job "easy" it can still be a chore to work on the inside of the hull where you can't see anything. And now you have another opening to make sure stays sealed up.