Small Anchor Hatch not watertight

[Joe222]

Hello,

Our Pacific Seacraft has two small cast aluminum hatches ( 1 next to main windless and one aft ) that have an open hole on the side even when closed and also no way to firmly close them. Inside they say CEL P582 but googling that comes up with nothing. I am hopeful there is some sort of plug to go in the oval opening to make them water tight but realize it's possibly wishful thinking.

Obviously we don't like water entering the boat but even worse the exhaust of our diesel furnace is only a couple feet away from aft hatch and last time to the boat it filled with diesel fumes. Once I crawled in the lazarette and could see daylight it started coming together. I don't think our heater is malfunctioning it's just sucking in air from exhaust.

I know this is a long shot but any ideas how to waterproof/ airtight this small oval opening would be appreciated. For now I have electrical tape and rescue tape over it with lid jammed on but that's too hokey to depend on.

Thanks for any input!

Joe -- SV Free Spirit

[rgleason]

Are these possibly Hood Hatches that are designed to be venting ?

[Joe222]

Originally Posted by rgleason

Are these possibly Hood Hatches that are designed to be venting ?

I asked the same question on a different forum and learned they are called Anchor Chain Hawse Pipes.

I've got some ideas on homemade plugs but still have not found a plug designed to seal them off.

[Tayana42]

Do you mean you have something like this.

https://images.boatid.com/perko/boat...DI0NS40Ni4wLjA.

It is a deck pipe for anchor chain, usually associated with a windlass. Yes a small amount of water can enter in normally rough conditions but the anchor well should be self draining. No, I’ve never found a good ready made plug but have used modeling clay, rubber ball, wax toilet ring or duck tape.

[rgleason]

Hawse pipe always leaks, not unusual. Many will duct tape or find other good solutions.

[JPA Cate]

Some hawse pipes have a cover, but they still have an air hole where the chain is. Usually, it faces aft, so that water (rain, waves) is less likely to intrude. One way to avoid your aft one sucking in exhaust would be to tap a small hole part way into the cover, and make a hook for you to hand the chain on. Unshackle the stern anchor chain from the anchor, hang chain on hook, close cover. Close shackle, and move anchor to it's alternate location on your pushpit somewhere. Then duct tape over the hole. There is slight inconvenience with this, because you have to re-attach the chain to the anchor before you use it, but it surely beats the heck out of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Ann

[Joe222]

I appreciate all the input. I'll figure out a temporary way to seal the openings, especially the one aft that is allowing exhaust to be drawn in to fresh air intake of heater. Fingers crossed that solves the diesel smell issue!

[TrentePieds]

Joe:

I note that you are in Pacific City, OR. Haven't been there for half a century, but what a lovely place :-)!

Perhaps not the best for ab initio training aboard a cruising boat, let alone you own, with yourself as skipper. Still, your boat is more than up to the task, and the question before you, it seems to me, is whether YOU know enough yet to head out for Alaska :-).

Do the best you can on the stretch from Pacific City to the Swiftsure Bank and DO be very, very careful! Once you are there, get yourself into the Straits of Juan deFuca for a nice comfortable downhill run in semi-protected waters as far as Port Townsend. Maybe having an experienced man aboard for the PC to PT leg, if it's your first time on the Oregon/Washington coast, might be a smart move :-)! Thence through splendidly scenic Canadian waters as far as Dixon Entrance, thence straight to Ketchikan. Easiest and most pleasurable cruising you could ever dream of, particularly in a deck-saloon boat like yours. Ideal lay-out, ideal size :-)!

And this is where the holes in your boat come in :-). As others have said, they are "hawse" holes. More pedantically, a pipe through the deck intended to lead the anchor rode below to a cable locker ("chain locker" to yotties) is called a "spurling pipe". The spurling pipe cover will have a "hawse" in it to permit the rode to remain shackled to the anchor so the anchor will be in readiness while the majority of the rode ("cable") remains stowed in its "flat" i.e., in its locker below decks. There should be a "grating" in the bottom of the cable flat for the wet cable to lie on. The grating permits the cable to drain, and the water is taken overboard through a small "scupper", a hole in the hull just above the waterline. The cable locker is, of course, sealed from the rest of the interior of the boat by means of a watertight bulkhead. A watertight hatch in the bulkhead gives access to the cable flat for servicing and maintenance.

Because it is common practice in the Salish Sea to carry a stern anchor your boat was, I'll wager, retrofitted with a spurling and hawse leading to the "lazarette" (the compartment immediately forward of the transom) by some previous owner who failed to complete the task of transforming the lazarette into a cable locker by installing a watertight bulkhead at its forward end, a grating and a scupper.

If that had been done, you would not get exhaust fumes into the boat via the stern spurling. If you intend to keep your boat for a long time and do serious cruising, particularly where anchoring over the stern or tying off to the shore is common and often essential, as it is here in the Salish, you might do yourself a favour by simply completing the job the PO left uncompleted by sealing off the stern cable flat from the rest of the boat. Doing so will give you lasting satisfaction in many ways!

All the best to you.

TrentePieds

[Joe222]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

Joe:

I note that you are in Pacific City, OR. Haven't been there for half a century, but what a lovely place :-)!

Perhaps not the best for ab initio training aboard a cruising boat, let alone you own, with yourself as skipper. Still, your boat is more than up to the task, and the question before you, it seems to me, is whether YOU know enough yet to head out for Alaska :-).

Do the best you can on the stretch from Pacific City to the Swiftsure Bank and DO be very, very careful! Once you are there, get yourself into the Straits of Juan deFuca for a nice comfortable downhill run in semi-protected waters as far as Port Townsend. Maybe having an experienced man aboard for the PC to PT leg, if it's your first time on the Oregon/Washington coast, might be a smart move :-)! Thence through splendidly scenic Canadian waters as far as Dixon Entrance, thence straight to Ketchikan. Easiest and most pleasurable cruising you could ever dream of, particularly in a deck-saloon boat like yours. Ideal lay-out, ideal size :-)!

And this is where the holes in your boat come in :-). As others have said, they are "hawse" holes. More pedantically, a pipe through the deck intended to lead the anchor rode below to a cable locker ("chain locker" to yotties) is called a "spurling pipe". The spurling pipe cover will have a "hawse" in it to permit the rode to remain shackled to the anchor so the anchor will be in readiness while the majority of the rode ("cable") remains stowed in its "flat" i.e., in its locker below decks. There should be a "grating" in the bottom of the cable flat for the wet cable to lie on. The grating permits the cable to drain, and the water is taken overboard through a small "scupper", a hole in the hull just above the waterline. The cable locker is, of course, sealed from the rest of the interior of the boat by means of a watertight bulkhead. A watertight hatch in the bulkhead gives access to the cable flat for servicing and maintenance.

Because it is common practice in the Salish Sea to carry a stern anchor your boat was, I'll wager, retrofitted with a spurling and hawse leading to the "lazarette" (the compartment immediately forward of the transom) by some previous owner who failed to complete the task of transforming the lazarette into a cable locker by installing a watertight bulkhead at its forward end, a grating and a scupper.

If that had been done, you would not get exhaust fumes into the boat via the stern spurling. If you intend to keep your boat for a long time and do serious cruising, particularly where anchoring over the stern or tying off to the shore is common and often essential, as it is here in the Salish, you might do yourself a favour by simply completing the job the PO left uncompleted by sealing off the stern cable flat from the rest of the boat. Doing so will give you lasting satisfaction in many ways!

All the best to you.

TrentePieds

Thanks for all the thoughts TrentePieds! Our boat is moored in the Multnomah Channel so we will be sailing out of the Columbia whenever we feel we are ready to head north to the Salish Sea and beyond. Currently, I do not know enough to make that trip but we are probably looking at Spring of 2024 so hope to learn enough. Still burdened by employment until late this Summer. We hope to have the boat well equipped to do a lot of sailing up and down the Columbia and out into the Ocean by Spring to test out our preparedness. Unfortunately the river bar here in PC is not navigable nor is there anywhere to keep a sailboat. Would love to have the boat anchored in the river below the house.

I'll look the situation over in the lazarette and see what would be involved to close off the anchor locker in the back corner. Luckily it's open now because I need to crawl back into it soon to place nuts on bolts from above to secure the base of a Scanstrut Backstay radar mount. Once I complete that task I think it will be pretty straightforward to install an airtight panel to keep exhaust fumes from making it to the lazarette.

We love our boat and she is solid but the amount of projects and the amount of time they take compared to non boat projects is amazing! I have my work cut out for me for some time.

[JPA Cate]

Hello again, Joel,

Our previous boat did not have a stern anchor setup until Jim made one. It involved getting a roller, and fabricating a way to get the anchor to drop far enough off the stern that the rode would not contact the hull. On that boat, which was a wet bilges boat, we let the stern locker drain down the inside of the hull, and into the bilge. You will want to set up your aft anchor and rode locker in such a way that it can drain overboard, on either heel; the main object being that dusty bilges are beautiful, and sea water in the quarter berth ain't! That kind of set up will also help with not getting exhaust gases below.

If you'll need to have someone weld up for you some of what you need, make sure you make exact drawings, 1/4" square graph paper is good for this job. It is what I use for pattern drafting for stuff for the boat. If you already have welding skills, forgive me for "teaching grandma to suck eggs."

Ann

[Joe222]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

Hello again, Joel,

Our previous boat did not have a stern anchor setup until Jim made one. It involved getting a roller, and fabricating a way to get the anchor to drop far enough off the stern that the rode would not contact the hull. On that boat, which was a wet bilges boat, we let the stern locker drain down the inside of the hull, and into the bilge. You will want to set up your aft anchor and rode locker in such a way that it can drain overboard, on either heel; the main object being that dusty bilges are beautiful, and sea water in the quarter berth ain't! That kind of set up will also help with not getting exhaust gases below.

If you'll need to have someone weld up for you some of what you need, make sure you make exact drawings, 1/4" square graph paper is good for this job. It is what I use for pattern drafting for stuff for the boat. If you already have welding skills, forgive me for "teaching grandma to suck eggs."

Ann

Thanks for the advice Ann! I am going to be very busy I can see.

I would definitely like to get the bilge dried out. When boat arrived this Fall during dry weather it was bone dry but since the rain set in that is not the case.

[JPA Cate]

Indeed, but then, "idle hands are the devil's workshop." Seriously, do keep in mind where you will launch the anchor from, and appropriate placement of the stern roller. It will have to hold the anchor off the hull.

Ann

[TrentePieds]

Yes Joe, by all means do what you have to ensure that water from handling your ground tackle does not get into the bilge. Water in the bilge is never good, though you boat is possibly set up so water from the shower drains to the bilge to be handled by the main bilge pump. Not good, but common enuff.

As a relative novice in the Salish Sea, you will not have to place extreme reliance on ground tackle. Certainly, you will be anchoring out overnight many, many times, but your bower, if well chosen, will handle any weather the SS will present you with in the summertime. If, which is a very long shot, something blows up that makes you uncomfortable where you are, you simply skive off, go to some other bay where you are sheltered, or to one of the marinas or harbours you'll find every few miles.

The stern anchor is used mainly to prevent swinging in crowded anchorages. That is done either y setting it or in some places by tying the rode off to a ring set in the rocks that lead steeply down to the water. Where there are no rocks with rings provided by a benevolent local authority, you take your stern rode ashore and tie off to a log.

In practise that means that you can keep your stern anchor with its rode stowed in a locker. Emergency employment of the stern anchor is never called for in the Salish Sea if you sail sensibly.

Many people use a Fortress anchor slung from the pushpit and shackle on the rode only when and if you are going to use the anchor rather than tie off to the shore. Some people have fairly elaborate reels of about 3-foot diameter mounted on their pushpits on which they keep three or four hundred feet of nylon rode.

Do yourself a favour and study Waggoner's Cruising Guide for the Salish Sea before you leave home. Lots of info there by which to plan a successful cruise :-)

Cheers

TrentePieds

[Tphipps]

Hi Joe, was just looking through your posts. My goodness you are on Multnomah Channel, next door neighbors. Anyhow I read an interesting suggesting for your hawse pipe issue. I have the end of my chain hanging from a hook inside the cap. The suggestion is to make a wooden plug to fit inside the hawse pipe and then split in half cut out the inside to fit your chain and hold in place. You drop the plug into the pipe which seals it and then close the cap. I have not tried it but just read about it in the last month.

[Scubaseas]

Closed cell foam. Cut oversize and on a taper. shove into hole.

Tennis ball stuffed into pipe. Drill hole and put a small rope on it to pull out.

Pool noodle if there is a rode in there.

Modeling clay/Plasticene works great.

Cotton towel or rag works in a pinch too.