Down Flooding Boards |
What
are they?
Boats built to earlier ABYC or other standards might not
have topside lockers separated from the internal areas of the
boat, so for example water entering a sail locker can flow with
gravity into the boat's bilge.
There may also have been no intent by the builder to
bring all edges of a lid and its opening together, an example of
this in the case of WHOOSH is that the coamings of her sail
lockers were intentionally built not to match up with the
undersides of the cockpit locker lids on all four sides.
This allowed the locker opening to be larger and accept
the passage of bigger items.
In such a case, the unsealed/unsealable lockers can
permit even more seawater into the interior of the boat, a
casualty typically referred to as down flooding.
To prevent this from happening, one can consider building
down flooding boards to cover & fully seal the locker openings.
Normally, these aren't used until needed - e.g. the
pending arrival of a storm or perhaps steeply pitched, sloppy
seas that are coming aboard - at which point they can be rigged
underneath the existing locker lids.
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One
Approach:
We didn't get to this project before crossing the
Atlantic in 2003 nor did we tackle it before crossing Biscay in
2005, but we did want to complete it before leaving Europe for
the Canaries and the onward Atlantic Crossing to the Caribbean.
It turned out to be quick, easy and inexpensive to do.
What was missing was my ability to identify a simple
solution. I finally
concocted an approach, visited a Spanish DIY store while in
Almerimar, Spain and the work was done in a day for less than 50
Euros.
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The
picture (left) pretty much tells the tale.
I first applied polyester resin to all the cut wood
sections as only low-grade ply was available.
I installed two #8 machine screws, locked in place with
nuts on each side, on each of a locker's four sides, the machine
screw heads to serve as the anchor points for bungee cord loops
threaded and knotted onto the boards.
I added cleats on each board's underside so they would
simply fall into their respective openings and not slide around,
after which the shock cord is looped over the screw heads.
Keep in mind that, when these are rigged, the regular GRP
locker lids are closed and secured, with the down flooding boards
secured underneath, so a heavy sea breaking aboard slams into
the GRP lid and its the momentary sluicing of the seawater
around the cockpit that the board is attempting to defeat from
entering below.
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I had
planned to place rubber strips on all four edges of each board
but initially couldn't find suitable rubber.
Once they were finished, the fit was so flush that I
wasn't convinced this step would make a good deal of difference
in the amount of water getting below...altho' it no doubt would
be the 'right thing to do'.
Several years later, several folks on the SSCA
Discussion Board asked about these boards, so I thought I'd add
them to WHOOSH's new Pacific prep section as we would certainly
not want to consider heading out there without a way to prevent
down flooding.
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©Jack Tyler
WHOOSH, lying Ortega River, Florida
September, 2009
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