Keeping water out of my cruiser stern's engine bay

[captain flint]

I'm soon going to be sorting out the rust in the base plate section of my engine bay, and priming and painting it. My stern gland does a great job, but the channels around the engine bay hatch, whilst quite wide and with two generous drainage holes, get clogged really easily and let lots of water in when it rains. 

 

I would like to keep it as dry as possible once I've redone it all. I will be more assiduous with cleaning out those channels and drainage holes but I'm thinking there must be other things you could do to help prevent our severally reduce that ingress in the first place. 

 

So... I'm investigating magnetised rubber or neoprene sheeting. Such stuff exists and I'm thinking a big rectangle of it to go over the whole engine bay hatch and attach magnetically to the surrounding steel of the cruiser stern deck wouldn't really be that much hassle to remove every time I need to go into the engine bay and surely would stop this ingress, or near as dammit. Any reaction to that as an idea? 

 

I guess it wouldn't be ideal for the paintwork on the steel, but the stern deck is easier to paint and generally deal with, plus isn't, you know, my base plate! 

 

It's a thought I've only just had, really. I would be really interested to hear anyone's thoughts. 🤔

 

PS One thing I've noticed already is such stuff doesn't come cheap, and so far I've only seen it in big rolls, far longer than I need, but maybe I could get an offcut - or, more likely, find some other boaters who'd like to to do the same and split the costs. For now, I'm just really interested to hear if people think it might be a good idea in principle, or if there's anything I'm missing that might put me off

[blackrose]

This is what I ended up doing and it's the only thing that's ever worked. It doesn't need to be magnetised. It's heavy and there's enough friction for it to stay put even in strong winds.

 

I'll try and find a link to the stuff I used. It cost me about 50 quid for my big widebeam deck boards.

 

You're right that potentially it's not great for the deck paint but my decks are all epoxied with undercoat and non-slip deck paint on top. The single pack deck paint and undercoat might lift at some point but the epoxy isn't going to.

 

Edited September 11, 2022 by blackrose

[blackrose]

This was the sort of stuff I bought but I went for 5mm thick rather than 3mm.

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/331765490113?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=kcwwaq7JS9e&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=SV_sF0T7SiS&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

 

I just roll it up one way or the other when I want to get one of the deck boards up.

 

 

Edited September 11, 2022 by blackrose

[captain flint]

1 hour ago, blackrose said:

This was the sort of stuff I bought but I went for 5mm thick rather than 3mm.

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/331765490113?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=kcwwaq7JS9e&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=SV_sF0T7SiS&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

 

I just roll it up one way or the other when I want to get one of the deck boards up.

 

 

Looks like just the ticket - thank you! And, er, silly question, but it works to keep the water out, right? 

[PeterF]

I put 6mm thick x 25mm wide self adhesive neoprene foam tape around the underside edges of my deck boards. This foam sits against the top of the gutters and forms a reasonable seal that minimises the amount of rain that gets into the engine bay.

My drainage tubes are curved so I bought a small brush on a flexible wire to clean them out.

[blackrose]

I tried neoprene tape under the boards but it didn't work for me. With my rubber sheet over the deck boards I get a big puddle that forms around the bottom of the control pedestal. It clearly shows the slight depression in the level of the deck. The builders should have sloped the decks down slightly on all sides away from the gutters.

 

Anyway, that puddle of water has to go somewhere and without the rubber sheet it goes into the gutters which can't cope with heavy rain. Depending on how bad it is, neoprene tape may delay water ingress so the gutters may cope. It's probably worth trying first.

Edited September 11, 2022 by blackrose

[Arthur Marshall]

I gave up trying. Mine had no gutters originally so I got a local yard to put a steel deck on, with gutters. Rather originally, they managed to fit one gutter so it sloped towards the bow rather than the stern, so it drains into the bilge rather than out of the boat. It's blatantly obvious  as one drainage hole is three inches higher than the other and the back deck has a huge slope. When I pointed this out, they suggested I altered the trim of the boat. So there is always a couple of inches of water in the bilge. 

(They also, at the same time, fitted a stern tube that they didn't seal properly so it damn near sank the boat a year later). I won't name them as I understand they are now under different management.

[captain flint]

14 hours ago, blackrose said:

Depending on how bad it is, neoprene tape may delay water ingress so the gutters may cope. It's probably worth trying first.

Tbh I think I prefer your solution, as I reckon stopping the water going in the gap beteeen deck and deck boards sounds like a better plan than trying to control where it goes after it it's there... Although it's possible I'm misunderstanding the tape solution

14 hours ago, PeterF said:

I put 6mm thick x 25mm wide self adhesive neoprene foam tape around the underside edges of my deck boards. This foam sits against the top of the gutters and forms a reasonable seal that minimises the amount of rain that gets into the engine bay.

My drainage tubes are curved so I bought a small brush on a flexible wire to clean them out.

Thanks