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I have noticed a small amount of saltwater (one cup) on top on my rear ballast tank and outboard of the tank rails.
How can saltwater get into this area ?
The boat is a 2012 26M.
Appreciate any experiences or suggestions.
Thanks OV2

OV2.... A little more info please....weather conditions, high speed, slow speed ,fast deceleration when powering, during uncovered storage etc etc. I have a 2011 Myself and have wondered when I was going to get water from the transom , on the port side where the steering arm comes through. I've also heard some talk about leaks from the helm area...... I know I didn't actually answer the question... but hey...gives You somethings to check on and think about Best of luck. Ron. Dauntless.

Have you been at anchor recently and used your swim ladder? Do you use a steep ramp? This was my source. If you submerge the stern enough you can have water intrusion through the rudder posts. I installed hte coke bottle mod which fixed the problem. Cut the top off of a 2 liter coke bottle and fit it (with sealant) to the top of the rudder tube to catch excess water that might come up the tube.

Bob

Are you plugging the ballast tank valve with the stopper in the v-berth? Although the "sink" around the vent can hold water, it will slosh out of there when you're heeling, and that bilge drains right back to the outside ballast tank area eventually. If you forget the plug, if the plug is loose, or if you sail with the plug in, you'll collect seawater on the port side in exactly the location you describe.

If the plug is loose, screw it "up" on the handle to widen it and make it tight.

Also if you have a thru-hull fathometer or triducer you'll want to check that fitting for watertightness. Another possible source is the sink-drain pee hole on the transom--if the tube has separated from the thru-hull fitting you'll get small amounts of water intrusion there.

oceanview2 wrote:I have noticed a small amount of saltwater (one cup) on top on my rear ballast tank and outboard of the tank rails.
How can saltwater get into this area ?
The boat is a 2012 26M.
Appreciate any experiences or suggestions.
Thanks OV2

Had same problem. Moved boat to Great Lakes. Problem mysteriously vanished.

DaveC426913 wrote:

oceanview2 wrote:I have noticed a small amount of saltwater (one cup) on top on my rear ballast tank and outboard of the tank rails.
How can saltwater get into this area ?
The boat is a 2012 26M.
Appreciate any experiences or suggestions.
Thanks OV2

Had same problem. Moved boat to Great Lakes. Problem mysteriously vanished.

However, have subsequently discovered freshwater accumulation in bilge in summers

fishheadbarandgrill wrote:Have you been at anchor recently and used your swim ladder? Do you use a steep ramp? This was my source. If you submerge the stern enough you can have water intrusion through the rudder posts. I installed hte coke bottle mod which fixed the problem. Cut the top off of a 2 liter coke bottle and fit it (with sealant) to the top of the rudder tube to catch excess water that might come up the tube.

Bob

Hey Bob – glad to see that mod works for you. The 2l bottle mod will catch water coming down through the rudder line hole from above, and water coming in on the rudder lines themselves. Unless you also make a seal (that's in the "mods" section here too) a few inches below the top of the rudder pivot tube (to the fibreglass steering box moulded to the transom), some water will still enter the boat at that point before it gets up to the level of the coke bottle funnel. But at a much slower rate, of course.

- Brian.

thanks for everyones input. Good suggestions. I'm putting together a checklist of things to examine carefully. Normally our 26m is always on a trailer in MASTUP storage. We launch on an average angle ramp. Motor at 5/6 mph for 2 miles to the breakwater. Easy on acceleration/deceleration.
I'll be back with my findings post them.
Thanks again.

ATTENTION ANYONE WITH A MAGREGOR 19 OR 26
I suggest you have someone pour some water into your motor-well while you are inside to see if all of the water goes out thru the thru-hull.
I presently have my Mac 26 in Florida, visible at www.fourwindsmarina.com webcam at the far end of the dock on the left, unless I am out sailing.

While back in Wisconsin, in January, they had a lot of rain there, and enough of it went thru a leak in the hose from the motor-well to the thru-hull so that the top of the motor-well was under water. Fortunately, the owner of the boat next to mine (also a Mac 26), noticed it and had my boat lifted out of the water, or it would have sunk.

My Mac 19 also took in a lot of rain water while on its trailer at my shop.

I also noticed a new Mac 26M that had been at my shop for awhile with a lot of water inside it. I started bailing the water out by pouring it into the cockpit, but soon noticed the water level was not going down as the water was going down from the motor-well and back into the boat.

I plugged the hole in the bottom of my motor-well and will drain it straight out the transom instead of having the water go inside the boat first.

I suggest you all check the drain tubing from the motor-well and, at the least, re-caulk and hose-clamp it. Even better would be to plug the hole in the bottom of the motor-well. Even if the motor-well fills up with water, it's not going to sink your boat.

I also plugged my thru-hulls that were just above the water-line and re-installed them higher up.

Yeah that motor well drain seems both unnecessarily complicated and prone to failure--an unusual combination for Macs. Why not just have a tube drilled straight through the transom at a downward diagonal? Why plumb it through the boat like that? I know that drain hole is already there for the sink, but it creates the failure mode that bill describes due to a fairly common problem.

I'd thought of the possibility of that tube leaking and allowing the boat to take on water, but it never occurred to me that you could take on enough water to get the drain hole underwater and start sinking.

I think I'll be doing a through-transom drain as well by epoxying in a PVC tube.

mastreb wrote:Yeah that motor well drain seems both unnecessarily complicated and prone to failure--an unusual combination for Macs. Why not just have a tube drilled straight through the transom at a downward diagonal? Why plumb it through the boat like that? I know that drain hole is already there for the sink, but it creates the failure mode that bill describes due to a fairly common problem.

I'd thought of the possibility of that tube leaking and allowing the boat to take on water, but it never occurred to me that you could take on enough water to get the drain hole underwater and start sinking.

I think I'll be doing a through-transom drain as well by epoxying in a PVC tube.

Matt, you are spot on. I've always thought this. Weird design with tiny drain in the bottom shared with the sink. I'd love to see what you come up with. It might be worthwhile mod.

Has anyone tried to change the sink drain to go out the side or bottom of the boat? It's horribly inefficient the way it is. Drains slow and out the back. Always clogging up. A more direct route might not clog as easily and could be made larger (faster).

--Russ

This is a concern of mine as well since the first time I put it in the water and noticed the position of the hole relative to the water line. It's THE Achilles heel in the whole boat. It could be a couple of inches higher on the transom to eliminate the problem. Unless you have a giant motor on the back, then it would need to be even higher for comfort. Of course, the sink would drain even slower, which is why it was positioned so low in the first place.

As I recall there is room without interfering with the motor mounts to drill almost straight back from the motor well (?), if someone wanted to do that. But you would want to put in a tube and seal it well to prevent absorption into the laminations of the transom wall interior.

A caged (floating) ball on the outside might help too, but I wouldn't count on that for too much reliability, but it would buy you some time.

One underutilized drain point that already exists is through the top of the tubes about which the rudders pivot, which are also the chase for the rudder lines. I have the pop bottle funnels located there, but it would be easy to patch a tube through that to drain to the exterior of the boat. Might be too high for the sink drain, but suitable for other uses, like a bilge pump.

Of course it would have swamped your boat, not sunk it, Bill (a key selling point, among many, of a MAC)! But made a big mess nonetheless. Good neighbours – priceless!

The Titanic was said to be unsinkable, but physics said otherwise, even before it actually sank. A Mac is said to be unsinkable too, but in this case the laws of physics actually agree with the statement.

- Brian.

I think we have discussed a direct motor well drain before. The fact that the motor well is a separate part from the transom would make a direct rigid drain problematic due to flexing. I do not think this could be done with flexible tubing since the distance is so small. Now if one was willing to add resin and roving/mat to rigidly connect the back part of the motor well to the transom, them maybe a direct drain could be made. Then of course, you could never again separate the hull from the deck to reseal the joint there.