Crack Seal

 As I check off one birthday after another, my “annoying list” continues to grow. High on my list are the leaks that arrive in Sails Call’s cabin when it rains. I had a drip below my newly installed main cabin windows … right over my bunk. Another formed a puddle on a shelf forward.

Trying to find the source of a leak can be a lesson in frustration. Anything could be the culprit! There are rails, cleats, winches, hatches everywhere on the cabin top. Plus minute checks, voids, and spider cracks all over the gel coat. Regular silicone sealants are messy and next to impossible to squeeze into such hairline fissures.

Then I heard of Captain Tolley’s Creeping Crack Cure. My first attempt was to tackle the drip over my bunk. In spite of using copious amounts of the prescribed sealant when I installed the windows two years before, there was a minute gap at the top edge of the window.

I cut Captain Tolley’s applicator tip, touched it to the gap, and squeezed the bottle gently. I was amazed to watch the milky white fluid get sucked into the gap and, through the acrylic, I could see it run all the way to the bottom of the window frame. Inside the cabin I found a tiny drip of Captain Tolley’s oozing out.

Waiting the prescribed 30 minutes, I reapplied and this time it ran about halfway down the window. The third application sealed it completely! Captain Tolley’s cures in about 30 minutes, dries clear, and is easy to wipe up with a paper towel. I used it to fill a large void around a forward hatch hinge that was the cause of another leak. That took about eight or ten applications … but it cured a leak that came with the boat in 2003!

Do you have a Boat Tip to share?

– Joe Kelliher