Mysterious leak

[Joe Myerson]

For several years now, I've had some water entering Crème Brûlée's cabin under certain specific circumstances. If the boat is heeled over on a starboard tack, so the toe rail is in the water, and if there are heavy waves. After such a rough sail, I will find water in the port shelves over the galley area, as well as a bit of water splashed on the cabin sole--and the bilge, once dry, will have some water.

Lately--and this is really disturbing--I've noticed some drops of water inside the ice box as well.

Here is my question: How can I find the leak? And, if the source of the water intrusion proves to be the hull-to-deck joint, what can I do?

--Joe

[Frenchy]

One possibility is that the screws holding down the toe rail are leaking. Mine were. I think this is more
likely than the hull to deck joint leaking. To fix, I removed the screws, inserted caulking and re-bunged.
The tell tales on my boat were streaks on the wood ceiling below the screw positions. - Jean

[Joe Myerson]

Thanks Jean,

This seems highly likely, especially since I had the boat yard refinish all my teak this past winter. The boat looks great, but if they took the toe rails all the way down, perhaps they loosened them a bit. I can live with this leakage through the season, but will have to deal with it when the boat is hauled. Anything is preferable to dealing with a bad hull-to-deck joint.

--Joe

[Jim Walsh]

I had one starboard aft stanchion base which was leaking. I removed it and rebedded it, curing that irritation. I would try to determine the source of the leak(s) and perhaps rebedding a couple stanchion bases will be the solution. One can only hope the source is not the toe rails or the hull to deck joint.

[Gary H]

Toe rail screws are less likely to leak than are the through bolts holding down the genoa track. At least that was my experience.