I hope that you will be able to help me with my question.
I bought a second hand Family 4 MK2 at the end of last year in Amsterdam. I am happy about the boat and was very looking forward for the summer.
I used it a few time this year, but today I noticed some water at the base of the table. I started to look in more details and I found out that there seems to be a serious leak in the anchor locker:
Water seems to be coming from the U-bolt in front. It was loose and rusted. So I will replace it.
At the same time t seems that rain water is always accumulating there, as a result it went through the wasll between the cabin and the locker and this whole part is rotten and needs to be redone
Two questions:
The design of cover for the anchor locker on the boat is somehow strange. It does not seems to be built/done to prevent rainwater to get in the anchor locker. Is that normal?
And do you ahve suggestion to adressing this problem? I was thinking about sealing off the anchor locker as I dont use it much, but this seems a bit extreme to me... Any suggestion on this?
Much more worrisome, I remove the loor covering in the cabin and I could see water between the floor covering and the plexiglass floor. Now looking a bit more I saw 4 holes that where used to put the foam under the cabin floor, and after removing the plugs on these wholes I now see that there seems to be water underneath the floor. DO you have any suggestion on how to remove that water, apart from removing/redoing the whole cabin floor? Is the bottom of the boat supposed to be full of foam? If so is there anyway to put it out?
Any help would be very, very welcome as I really like the boat and would love to be able to use for many years to come!
Hi Christian
If your boat is like my Black Hawk there should be a drain hole - about 10mm diameter- to allow water to run out of the anchor well. If this is blocked that's why water has accumulated and rotted the panel. The hole is quite low down and in the 'V' at the front of the well - you should be able to see it from the outside. If it's blocked you need to clear it.
As for your other problem - post some photos so we can see what you're talking about.
Please find below some pictures from the water leak damages. There doesn't seem to be any drain in the anchor lock. This is very strange to me as this design does not make sense...
I also added some pictures of the inside as I need to address the problem of the wet foam (and I am sure that there is water in the bottom of the hull
Hello Christian
I agree with the other replies here. You should have a drain hole in your anchor locker below the u-bolt but above the waterline so any rain water etc can drain out. My locker doesn't have a lip around the top edge either so I can only assume the drain hole is considered to be enough.
It seems from other posts on this forum, and my experience too, that wet foam is a common problem and people have either removed it completely if it's really bad or pushed a pipe down the table hole and attached a syringe or a pump or something and sucked the water out. It's a gradual process though because it takes some time for the wet foam to drain down to the bottom to replace the water you just sucked out but eventually it seems to work. It's also worth checking to see if rainwater is getting in through the window seals - one of my jobs next winter is to fix that problem on mine!
These are great boats though, strong and comfortable. Hope your refit goes well and you get to spend many happy hours on it!
David
I will follow the advice and look for a drain in the bottom of the anchor lock. But one question, where should that drain ends up? I looked on the site of the boat and I cant see anything... Do you have any idea where this should be located on a Family 4?
And, one last question ref the foam. I am really not planing to remove it as this would be a very,very big job... So I am planning to rent a water pump and to do a hole in the foam to get to the bottom. And any idea how long should wait for it to drip to the bottom, are talking about days/weeks/months?
Hi Christian
In my F4 the drain simply goes straight out through the side. That's why it needs to be above the water line so you don't get water flooding in that way, but it's not a big hole - maybe 12mm? It's also got a kind of liner inside the hole that I guess it to try to stop water getting into the hull material.
Regarding the foam, I haven't tackled this yet, though I think I'll need to, but if you search on this forum for 'wet foam' or something similar you can find what other owners have done.
Hope that helps
David
