Something that is easy to do and requires little thought is scraping off paint. Armed with hot air gun and scrapers I set to in the cockpit well on the port side where the leaks appeared.
Some of the paint came off really easily and in this photo you can see the gap between the aft end of the aft centerplate block and one of the extra pieces put in by the original owner. This is the source of one of the leaks and fairly obvious.
I poked at the extra batten with the sharp point of the paint scraper and it came away easily and the wood underneath is wet. The conclusion is that the leak starts further forward where the slot in the hull begins and the crack allow water to seep along until it find a point where it can get through the point.
I’ve put two images together to show the next leak, the one highlighted by the cyan circle. This is just aft of a brass screw put in through the 45º angles face. You can see the screw in the left image and just see the indentation in the paint on the right image at about 11 o’clock on the circle. I would suspect that this is the source of the leak. I would suppose that over time the brass screw has degraded until it is no longer watertight and so the water gets it. It might be the case that after a few days in the water, the wood around the screw expands and makes it watertight again. That screw may even be at such an angle that it penetrates through the hull.
That has to come out and since this is suspect, I’ll take the entire batten out on both sides, carefully removing the brass screws in the process. The screw holes will be filled with a flexible sealant and a new batten put in place, held by SikaFlex as this remains flexible when cured.
The next area is a little more difficult since it appears to be under the battens. The whole shebang was covered in a thick layer of what looks like SikaFlex, indicating that the leak has been there for some time and attempts have been made to fix it. These battens and the bulkhead will need to be removed to investigate and I would not be surprised if there is another degraded brass screw or two through the battens, and possibly through the hull, that are no longer watertight.
So, more deconstruction required and some careful investigation of the hull that appears to be leaking.
That’s all for today, I burnt my hand on the hot air gun and need to go and attend to it.
Time for a cup of tea.