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Canalboat Canopy Leaking On Sides


Jennifer

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Hi all wondered if anyone has some advice, we have just had a canopy installed on our back deck and it is great but the water from the roof to the sides is leaking down into the deck on both sides when it is raining as there is nothing to really stop it getting in as it goes straight under the canopy where it is attached to the roof.  I am wondering if anybody else has this problem and if so know of a solution to stop it my husband said he might put some silicon to try to channel the rain water out the sides but not sure really what the best solution would be as the opening for the rain water to channel to is half way up the roof and it is the way it is built so when it is raining the water just flows all the way down onto the deck and leaves a big pool of water inside on both sides which when it is heavy kind of defeats the purpose of the canopy.  Have spoken to the maker and he explained that it is the way that the boat is made and there is not a lot that can be done about it other than to channel the water off the roof but not sure what the best solution would be.

 

Is there any sort of product that can be brought for this problem that anyone knows of if so would be really keen to know what it is if it exists !!

 

 

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Is it possible the boat is trimmed a bit nose up, and water on the back of the roof is supposed to run forwards to the drain holes? If it's a cruiser stern, I would have thought the shell builder would have tried to avoid water from the roof ending on the back deck.

 

A few pictures might help:)

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We had this problem on a cruiser stern NB.

 

I put a small 'dam' of silicone running across from the rear edge of the cabin, over the gunwale and leading over the edge, it had a sort of 'backwards' angle to deflect any water running down the gunwale over the side.

Lay a couple of matches end to end and cover them with silicone to form the dam.

 

The second thing I had done was to add an extra 6" to the bottom of the 'cover', so, instead of finishing at deck level (and allowing the water to run underneath)the 'flaps' draped over the side and directed the water away.

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8 hours ago, Iain_S said:

Is it possible the boat is trimmed a bit nose up, and water on the back of the roof is supposed to run forwards to the drain holes? If it's a cruiser stern, I would have thought the shell builder would have tried to avoid water from the roof ending on the back deck.

 

A few pictures might help:)

Hi am not at the boat at the moment to get pics, the drain holes are in the middle section of the roof so water after that point is hitting the back deck as it only runs down into the deck when it builds up on the roof as there are no further drain holes.

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12 minutes ago, Jennifer said:

Hi Alan I think that is what my husband is thinking of doing but not sure how to do it, you don't have any pics by any chance of how you did it do you that would be really helpful thank you I will show him your email 

I looked for pics last night but couldn't find any - I cannot even remember which boat it was on.

 

I'll try and describe it.

 

We had water running down the gunwale (front to back) and because the boat was not quite level side-to-side it tended to collect in the are where the vertical cabin side joined the gunwale as it ran towards the back (and then onto the rear deck).

 

Look at the attached pic - imagine that the 'front is actually the back'

I laid a small 'snail trail of silicone' and set two matched into it (you can use as many as you want) at an angle running backwards where the cabin side joined the gunwale and then built up the 'dam' using more silicone until it was all deflected overboard.

 

The 'white line' in the pic is the silicon dam.

 

 

InkedIMG_1539_LI.jpg

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I have also built a dam at the bow of Nightwatch. When filling the water tank and when full, water can penetrate into the well deck under the cratch cover at the sides. I found a couple of short lengths of tiny plastic pipes and stuck and covered them with silicon. Once matured i painted them. A suprise to me is that it works.

I'll put a piccy up at a more reasonable hour once my eyes are operating properly.

 

Edited to add, Another possibility is to source some plastic, 'angle iron' and fix that across the front edge of the lower part of the cover. 

Edited by Nightwatch
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19 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

I looked for pics last night but couldn't find any - I cannot even remember which boat it was on.

 

I'll try and describe it.

 

We had water running down the gunwale (front to back) and because the boat was not quite level side-to-side it tended to collect in the are where the vertical cabin side joined the gunwale as it ran towards the back (and then onto the rear deck).

 

Look at the attached pic - imagine that the 'front is actually the back'

I laid a small 'snail trail of silicone' and set two matched into it (you can use as many as you want) at an angle running backwards where the cabin side joined the gunwale and then built up the 'dam' using more silicone until it was all deflected overboard.

 

The 'white line' in the pic is the silicon dam.

 

 

InkedIMG_1539_LI.jpg

Thank you Alan that is really helpful 

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42 minutes ago, Nightwatch said:

Another possibility is to source some plastic, 'angle iron' and fix that...

I like this idea :)

9 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

I put a small 'dam' of silicone running across from the rear edge of the cabin, over the gunwale and leading over the edge

Clever :)

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Aarrgh! <pedant> It is silicone with an e, not silicon for the gooey stuff used to make water diversion dams. As bad as Amps per hour!</pedant>

 

Sorry, one of the consequences of studying Materials Science long ago. It was a lot easier back then as not many materials had been invented then. Flint, reindeer sinew, wood, tree resin.

 

Jen

Edited by Jen-in-Wellies
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19 minutes ago, Nightwatch said:

Silicon,silicone, lets call the whole thing off.

 

But a well justified pendant! alert. 

Nah. Not a pendant alert for me.

Silicone contains silicon. Silicon is just a shortened form of silicone sealant just as silicone is a shortened form of silicone sealant. Using just silicone is not sufficient if you want to be picky as you can get silicone grease, silicone adhesives, silicone oil etc. To be precise, you should say silicone sealant, not silicone or silicon.

I knew what mad Harold was saying. 

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7 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

Nah. Not a pendant alert for me.

Silicone contains silicon. Silicon is just a shortened form of silicone sealant just as silicone is a shortened form of silicone sealant. Using just silicone is not sufficient if you want to be picky as you can get silicone grease, silicone adhesives, silicone oil etc. To be precise, you should say silicone sealant, not silicone or silicon.

I knew what mad Harold was saying. 

I think I know what you're saying.

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2 hours ago, Nightwatch said:

I have also built a dam at the bow of Nightwatch. When filling the water tank and when full, water can penetrate into the well deck under the cratch cover at the sides. I found a couple of short lengths of tiny plastic pipes and stuck and covered them with silicon. Once matured i painted them. A suprise to me is that it works.

I'll put a piccy up at a more reasonable hour once my eyes are operating properly.

 

Edited to add, Another possibility is to source some plastic, 'angle iron' and fix that across the front edge of the lower part of the cover. 

Thanks Nightwatch angle iron seems a good idea too 

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Instead of using plastic 'angle iron', why not use square steel bar, stick it on with Stixall and paint it? I think that would be far more solid. If you don't want to paint it you could use aluminium. Enough metal to go across the gunwales will cost about a fiver on ebay. 

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Lovely pictures of how to fix a cratch cover leak, the OP said back so presumably a pram hood. 

Any cruiser stern boat with the modern solid hand holds on the roof-side corner is designed for water to flow down the edge of the roof inside the raised hand hold and over back edge of the roof at the stern. Some have an intermediary water escape point part way down. Most cruiser stern boats (and semi trads) do not have the rise in the roof at the stern which would stop the problem the OP has. The rear half at least, of the roof has to drain over the edge at the back onto the stern deck and and thence through the drains., One way I have seen used is to have a hole in the flap that lies on the roof by the hand hold rail, to allow the water to flow down by that edge and over the roof edge onto the sterndeck and into the drain channel and thence over the side. This is the route the water has always taken and blocking it's path with the hood has caused the problem.  This is not a problem on a boat that has the tubular grab rails, so perhaps you could remove the rear few feet of hand hold, and replace it with a tube handrail. Tubular rails allow you to tie things easil,y but allow any small item in the roof to slide over the side, so plus and minus both ways.

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17 minutes ago, Detling said:

Lovely pictures of how to fix a cratch cover leak, the OP said back so presumably a pram hood. 

As I said in the post - imagine the picture showing the front is the stern.

 

We had a cruiser stern with a pram hood and that is how I overcame the problem of water running down the roof, thru the drain onto the gunwale and then along the gunwale , under the 'skirts' and onto the deck.

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On 11/10/2019 at 22:31, Jennifer said:

Hi all wondered if anyone has some advice, we have just had a canopy installed on our back deck and it is great but the water from the roof to the sides is leaking down into the deck on both sides when it is raining as there is nothing to really stop it getting in as it goes straight under the canopy where it is attached to the roof.  I am wondering if anybody else has this problem and if so know of a solution to stop it my husband said he might put some silicon to try to channel the rain water out the sides but not sure really what the best solution would be as the opening for the rain water to channel to is half way up the roof and it is the way it is built so when it is raining the water just flows all the way down onto the deck and leaves a big pool of water inside on both sides which when it is heavy kind of defeats the purpose of the canopy.  Have spoken to the maker and he explained that it is the way that the boat is made and there is not a lot that can be done about it other than to channel the water off the roof but not sure what the best solution would be.

 

Is there any sort of product that can be brought for this problem that anyone knows of if so would be really keen to know what it is if it exists !!

 

 

This is how I fixed it on my boat, it’s a piece of aluminium angle glued on with Gorilla Grip glue.

IMG_20191013_170200[1].jpg

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On 12/10/2019 at 11:45, Jennifer said:

Thanks Nightwatch angle iron seems a good idea too 

Aarrgh! <pedant> It is plastic angle not angle iron. Almost as bad as silicon without an e! </pedant>

 

And if anyone wants to be really pedantic I'd guess it's probably made of PVC.

 

Personally I'd just use a bead of clear Stixall as someone already suggested. It will stay put a lot longer than silicone and won't be noticed or get knocked off by heavy boots like plastic angle. Buy it at Toolstation or online for about a fiver.

 

Edited by blackrose
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3 minutes ago, Jennifer said:

That is pretty much exactly how our roof looks thanks for this picture really helpful 

Don't do it in plastic as it breaks to easily. You could always have a new drain off point cut just in front of your pram hood, with a metal diverter int he centre of the new drain off  I've been thinking of doing this or much easier to pay someone else to do it for me. 

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On 14/10/2019 at 10:46, Nightwatch said:

I think Nightwatch actually wrote 'plastic' angle iron originally. Therefore assuming any reference thereafter to 'plastic' angle iron in this context could be shortened to angle iron.

 

?

 

I don't really follow that logic but never mind. Call it whatever you want.

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