With the jetski preoccupying our weekends, Wiffersnapper decided she wanted some attention in the month of June.
Rainy season was now among us, and it started with what felt like 40 days of rain. Literally, it poured for two weeks straight.
Leaky Boat
After the first few days of rain, we noticed our vinyl flooring was starting to raise up near the galley. I thought it was strange, and didn’t put two-and-two together until we could feel a “squish” when we walked on it a couple days later. Yup. There was standing water under our floors that we had laid less than a year ago.
Of course, I didn’t make this discovery until 9pm one evening, and by then, I was determined to solve the issue. The only way to clean up the water was to rip up our flooring, which broke my heart with every plank I pulled up. It was worse than we thought. The leak ran from the closet, into the galley and all the way back through the hall to our master stateroom.
Once the vinyl planks were up, we then had to rip up the thin layer of Lauan we used as an underlayment – which was completely drenched, stinky, starting to mold, and falling apart at the touch.
We could see where the water was leaking between the closet wall and the dinette. Actually, the same leak occurred during our renovations phase, but thought we had solved it by taping the rub rail on the outside haul of the boat.
Locating The Leak
Upon further inspection, Will (and the leak locater we hired 😒) found the water wasn’t coming from the rub rail, but rather the cowl vents that sit on the deck of the boat. “WTH. Who designed that?!” I thought as I inspected how water was running on the deck and pouring into the side walls of the boat.
You see, the vents have duct hose attached that run to different parts of the boat’s bilge. There purpose is to funnel air, vapors, etc. out of the boat, and any water that happens to come in would just funnel into the bilge to be pumped back out of the boat.
Well, our duct had a few tears in it, thus letting rain water drip straight down onto our power inverter, through the walls of the boat, and out onto our floors… talk about a fire hazard!
Solving The Issue
Another two weeks passed as we battled the rain with waterproof tape and towels on the floor. We were finally able to disassemble the vents, reattach new hose and reseal the vents when the rain let up.
After that, back to the store we went to by new plywood for the floor, but luckily we were able to reuse our vinyl planks, which weren’t damaged, but no longer fit together AS nicely as they did before.
But Wait, There’s More
Well Wiffersnapper wasn’t done with us yet. As if ripping up our floor wasn’t enough, she decided the Air Conditioners needed some love. Will had been planing on rebuilding the AC manifold anyways, since the original was such a poor design.
But first, we needed an easier way to clean the strainer that filters water from the seacock to the AC pump. So, I present you our brand new AC strainer, yay! Isn’t she lovely?
With this bad boy, and Will’s new manifold contraption, we should have no more AC issue’s right?
Ha, wrong! With all of the storms and rain, the water was all churned up and had lots of tree leaves and debris floating around, waiting to get sucked up in our thru-hull. At one point, it seemed like we were down there cleaning the AC strainer basket and back flushing the thru-hull every three days!
AC Saga Continues
As if that wasn’t enough fun, our aft AC compressor decided to give out. After buying a multimeter, watching a number of YouTube videos and troubleshooting the problem on the phone with my stepdad, we couldn’t figure it out. So, we decided to spend the $250 and have a professional come out… just to fill our middle AC with freon, and tell us our aft AC is toast. 😑
So, if anyone want’s to donate to the make-a-Wiffersnapper-happy foundation… she needs a shiny new 16,000 BTU Reverse-Cycle AC unit. It’s on Sale! 🤗
Until we find the strength to swipe the card, we are living with a borrowed portable AC unit venting from our shower window.
We run the portable AC at night, and filter the condensed water into a large mixing bowl on the floor of our aft head. Every 3 or 4 hours we get up to dump the water in the bowl so it doesn’t overflow. Heaven forbid we sleep through the night, or our reward will be stepping in a puddle of water when we wake to use the bathroom at 6am.
Isn’t #boatlife a blast?
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