Toerail leak

I think I figured out why my starboard toe rails leak so badly into the cabin. I had assumed that the rake of the deck from the peak back to the deck drain just aft of the companionway was uniform enough to shed the water and had concentrated on caulking the area forward of the leak, but it looks like that's not the case. Evidently there are several things going wrong here.

First, there is an area of about 4-6 feet from the drain forward that's essentially the same height, and water seems to pool a few feet forward of the drains. I could probably raise the bow a little, but then it would pool aft of the drain. Unfortunately, this can't really be fixed without pulling off the toe rail and re-fairing that section of deck. I can come a little inboard of the toerail and seal the joint with epoxy, but the part under the toe rail will still be subject to the same problem.

The second problem is that the toerail along this section is in bad shape, which is probably due to poor maintenance and the fact that is was continually wet due to the pooling. Yesterday, I started trying to fix it by forcing in glue and clamping a 4' section where the splitting was the worst. I still need to do smaller sections fore and aft of the one I've got clamped, but with only 4 c-clamps, I can only do one small section at a time. The funny thing is, that I never saw a leak near this area, it was always forward. So, it looks like the water got in at the split section and ran forward until it found a bolt hole that had lost it's seal. I could see several bolts that leaked and nothing else was wet, but re-bedding the offending bolts didn't help.

The other problem, is that when I had the boat in the water, I had a bunch of extra gear that made the bow heavier than normal, so she was nose down by a couple of degrees which exacerbated the problem and made it leak every time it rained or I shipped a sea. I bought about 200' chain and installed a bow roller for a new 35# CQR anchor which also added weight forward. Plus, I had a bunch of books and clothes that I've since gotten rid of packed into the v-berth.

However, the addition of the wind vane off the stern as well as the jordan drogue, and the new plywood partitions I plan to add to the cockpit lockers should more than make up for this. I also plan to add mounts for heavier stuff, like spare anchors, on the new plywood partitions which should add considerable weight aft and be much safer -- I don't want any loose cannons on, or below, deck. Although, I won't know for sure until I have her in the water at rest and can adjust the weight to get her to sit properly fore and aft.

Boat watch:

I'm going to continue working on the toerail and preparing the deck for painting. However, I want to have the toerails finished first so I can paint over the bead of epoxy I plan to add to the crack between the deck and the toerail since it will provide UV protection. Otherwise, the sun will deteriorate it over time and all my work will be for naught. There's only a few more places on the deck that need some filling/fairing, so I'll try to get that done while I'm working on the toe rails. I've also started working on the rest of the teak to get it ready for varnish -- some of which, like the handrails, still need to be reinstalled first. Scraping off the old varnish is a really dirty job.

Zoe watch:

The days are noticeably shorter, a couple of minutes a day now, but it's still unseasonably hot. However it is getting better and pretty much staying under 90 during the day and has actually been cool in the mornings. Zoe loves the cooler weather and likes to play tug with the leash on the walk home. She was so happy this morning that she even played tug on the way out. We just went down to the harbor and looked at boats as usual, but if it keeps cooling off, we'll start taking longer walks.

In Manhattan, we'd normally walk about 45 minutes to an hours in both the morning and the evening, but at those times, you can always find shade on one side of the street or the other, so the heat wasn't too bad. But that's not the case here in Huntington, and she has no choice but to walk over large sections of hot asphalt between shady areas. The only time it was really bad was when it got over 100, but we didn't go far that day and I kept her on the grass and in the shade most of the time -- and have the poison ivy to prove it. Our walks these days are only about 30 minutes.