Water filling up lazarette

[SeattleSeafarer]

Hello everyone,

I recently purchased a 1987 Mac 26D and am restoring and repairing it, getting it ready for a trip to the San Juans later this summer. I am its third owner. The first owner looked as though he knew a little bit about sailing as he equipped the boat with bilge pumps, a Garmin 162 GPS and a VHF radio. The second owner, less so, as he stated he never used the GPS or radio, and when I asked him about the missing snap plug that goes in the water ballast, he said he didn't know there was supposed to be one there at all.

Years of sailing without the ballast plug has allowed water to spill into the bilge, making for a bit of a mold farm. I believe he had just been using the bilge pump to remove water after sailing. The second consequence of this is that all of the wiring is corroded with broken or flimsy connections. It's all gotta go!

This week I've been doing my best to get the remaining water out of the boat. I've sponged and mopped most of it up, and have set up a box fan to allow it to air dry. That's when I noticed the lazarette has about three inches of water in it that would never drain by gravity or otherwise. It appears as though the first owner had drilled a hole in the bottom of bulkhead a couple of feet to the starboard off the centerline for routing a hose from the bilge pump in the laz to the ballast tank opening in the cabin. I assume the use of this was to pump out the ballast while seaborne.

So my plan now is to remove the hose and patch or repair the hole as necessary to obtain a watertight lazarrette. My question to the group is this: does your Classic have a hole in bulkhead and is it watertight? Seems like a dumb question, but I can't tell if these came from the factory like this, or if this was modded to be this way.

I did search the forum and read the recent post on this from January. What I couldn't really gather from that post was whether or not a watertight laz is important, or is just a nice to have? Obviously, water shouldn't be getting in the boat in the first place, so fixing this may not be entirely necessary. Should I just dry it out, shove a plug in the ballast tank hole, and let it go at that? Or should I be removing the hose and patching the hole in the bulkhead?

SeattleSeafarer

[Maraquita]

I just bought my 26D also, so I am still learning about it. I can tell you, though, that there are no holes in the rear lazaret on mine. I don't see any areas that look like they were repaired or patched either. Until I got all of the poorly sealed bolt holes, etc. sealed up I had to mop out about 3 inches of water after every hard rain. A previous owner did drill a small hole up high in the bulkhead to run speaker wires through.

The only reason that I can think of for really worrying about the water tightness of the rear lazaret is that most people wind up putting their outboard gas tank down there sometime, even though it's a bad idea. You definitely don't want those fumes wafting through your boat. But I can't believe that your previous owner would have been pumping ballast water out through the vent hole. I believe that would make a very uncomfortable (and unsafe) Classic!

[SeattleSeafarer]

I just bought my 26D also, so I am still learning about it. I can tell you, though, that there are no holes in the rear lazaret on mine. I don't see any areas that look like they were repaired or patched either. Until I got all of the poorly sealed bolt holes, etc. sealed up I had to mop out about 3 inches of water after every hard rain. A previous owner did drill a small hole up high in the bulkhead to run speaker wires through.

The only reason that I can think of for really worrying about the water tightness of the rear lazaret is that most people wind up putting their outboard gas tank down there sometime, even though it's a bad idea. You definitely don't want those fumes wafting through your boat. But I can't believe that your previous owner would have been pumping ballast water out through the vent hole. I believe that would make a very uncomfortable (and unsafe) Classic!

Thanks for the reply, Maraquita! So that's one for no hole in the lazarette. Sounds right to me.

I forgot to state this, but the way the guy had it set up was to use a garden hose on the discharge of the bilge pump in the laz and just throw the end overboard while pumping the ballast out. He obviously wasn't an engineer, because he kept the outboard gas tank in there as well, creating a Class 1 Div 2 hazardous area with an unrated 12V DC motor in the compartment (sparky sparky boom boom). To his credit, however, the gas can has a thumbscrew on the vent, so it is possible to close the vent on it when not in use.

And yes, you can smell gas while laying in the aft berth. Since I am rewiring it anyway, I am also considering plugging the factory hole in the top of the bulkhead for this reason and using bulkhead electrical fittings if I need to route any new power wires back there. Currently, there are com lines for the VHF and the GPS antennae, but I'm not sure I'll be keeping them as I can't get either one to work.

BTW, we were holding 6.4 knots last weekend on Lake Washington on the leeward runs with the dagger up! We were racing a guy in ~40 foot keel boat for awhile. He was faster tacking upwind, but we were faster on the downwind runs. It was gusty, so upwind, he'd just heel and speed up while I'd weatherhelm and slow down, otherwise I might have got him upwind as well in a steady wind. The 26D is a heck of a lot of fun to sail, and not slow, either!

[Interim]

I have a 26S with a similar hole in the lazarette bulkhead. Mine seems to have been drilled for battery cables. And like yours, when it rains, I get water in the bilge (better than lakewater coming in, though). When it fills enough, it runs through the hole into the lazarette. I plan to seal it with some 5200.

But the thread has prompted a couple questions:

1) if it is bad to keep the outboard fuel tank in the lazarette, where do you put it?
2) unless you keep the batteries in the lazarette, you have to have a hole in the bulkhead, don't you?

--john

[SeattleSeafarer]

I have a 26S with a similar hole in the lazarette bulkhead. Mine seems to have been drilled for battery cables. And like yours, when it rains, I get water in the bilge (better than lakewater coming in, though). When it fills enough, it runs through the hole into the lazarette. I plan to seal it with some 5200.

But the thread has prompted a couple questions:

1) if it is bad to keep the outboard fuel tank in the lazarette, where do you put it?
2) unless you keep the batteries in the lazarette, you have to have a hole in the bulkhead, don't you?

--john

John, you bring up a good point: both battery and fuel tank should be vented outdoors. Key word here being "should".

In the case of the fuel tank, if it is placed in an enclosure such as the lazarette, it should have a vent line with a carbon adsorption canister according to the ABYC, USCG, and EPA. According to regulators, non-vented tanks are NOT suitable for installation in an enclosure. Gasoline vapor (LEL= 1.4% by vol.) is heavier than air, so simply putting a hole somewhere in the top of the lazarette would not adequately vent the compartment. The non-vented tanks that came with our boats have manual valves on the vents which should be closed after each use -- which is fine according to ABYC as long as the tank isn't being kept in an enclosure (not sure where you'd put it otherwise -- the cockpit?). Newer non-vented polypropylene tanks come equipped with "fuel demand valves" that keep the pressure buildup in the gas tank from flooding the engine during periods of non-use. Those tanks are really tight. The fittings on my old steel Honda gas can leak just enough under pressure that flooding has never been an issue for me even though I don't have a fuel demand valve -- but I can faintly smell gasoline while laying down in the aft berth with my head close to the factory vent hole that's located at the top of the bulkhead.

In the case of a battery, most of them will off-gas hydrogen (LEL = 4% by vol.), which is lighter than air and will freely vent upwards through a vent into the atmosphere. A battery box with a vent attachment routed to the exterior is the official recommended solution. There aren't any regulations on this, as far as I am aware (correct me if I'm wrong here). Most batteries do not off-gas significant enough quantities of hydrogen to be considered an explosion hazard, but will still off-gas enough to cause corrosion issues and the premature failure of wiring and electrical fittings.

Answering number 2) above, there isn't a need for a hole in the bulkhead. If you are going to put a battery in the lazarette, it needs to be placed in a Class 1 Div 2 vented battery box -- no exceptions. The battery is a potential source of electrical ignition. Use a battery box rated for the area classification. Power can be brought into the cabin to a bus bar for distribution via air-tight Class 1 Div 2 electrical bulkhead fittings placed near the top of the bulkhead. If you keep the battery under a seat in the cabin the hydrogen gas will find a way out as the bilge isn't air-tight. Additionally, there aren't any gas fumes to ignite.

I've never seen nor heard of anyone getting ticketed for using a non-vented gas can in their laz, but I suppose it's possible. Anyone, please chime in if you've gotten pinched. I don't have the money to replace my tank right now, so for my own purposes, I will be sealing up the laz and plugging all holes in the bulkhead to keep the smell out of the cabin and will likely continue using the 6 gallon Honda can that came with my boat for the time being. As long as you're a non-smoker (or can remember not to open the laz with a cigarette hanging out of your mouth), remember to close the vent on the can after every use, are careful about filling your tank so as not to slosh gasoline all over the place, and you don't put any non-classified electrical equipment back there, it should be okay. The small amount of gasoline that evaporates from around the fittings wouldn't be enough to cause an explosion, and even if it was, there isn't an ignition source. I wouldn't recommend others do this, though, as there is a need to be consciously aware of what it is you're doing. There's always the risk of getting too comfortable with the situation and making a bonehead mistake. The original owner of my boat installed a bilge pump with a brushed DC motor in the laz right next to the gas can. I will obviously be removing that. I also fully intend on correcting the design with a proper tank with vent later this year when I get the money together. By no means do I consider this a permanent fix.

SeattleSeafarer