Can this be fixed??

[BogMonster]

Now I am really P&&&&d off

I have found my leak

It was a small leak and it is now a very big leak

Went down today, tried soapy water in the valve, seemed to be OK, pumped that chamber up fairly hard and bang fshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh lots of bubbles and it was flat again in about 2 minutes

Photos attached - no idea what has happened it looks almost like the hypalon is rotten and blown out but surely it shouldn't be completely knackered at 6 years old? the boat has only done 300 hours of running time and has been stored out of the water most of its life.

Given that I haven't reversed into anything I can't see how it can be physical damage, it isn't from rubbing on the pontoon or anything, it just looks to have "burst". Though if it was rotten, I would have thought it would fail where it is attached to the rigid part of the hull.

The visible damage (there may be more which I can't see by pulling it up onto a slipway, I just wanted to investigate the large amount of bubbles that suddenly appeared) is in about the worst possible place being right between two seams where the "cone" is fixed into the rear of the tube. Couldn't see it that well with the boat still in the water, I will take it out later or tomorrow as I can't use it like this anyway, it is now going flat straight away.

Any thoughts, can this be repaired/is it going to last or is it a throwaway job? I figure an ordinary patch won't be much good because of the seams, and below the waterline I guess it will get a hard time anyway even if it was attached to a flat area.

Please don't anybody say "take it to your nearest specialist" because there isn't one...

any comments would be gratefully received

I am starting to wish I bought the Wildcat instead

thanks

Stephen

[Paul F]

Stephen,
Why dont you send the pics to Humber and see what they say on it.
Not being an expert on tubes (but there are a few on here that will pop up soon) I would have thought its patchable. But Humber might be able to tell why it has gone.
Paul

[jyasaki]

Well, I am of the opinion that pretty much anything *can* be repaired; it depends on whether the time and expense is worth it to you.

I would hold off on speculating on cause until you get the boat out of the water.

Kind of an odd place to burst, since it appears from the picture that the seam did not fail, rather the material failed through the glued-up double layer portion. Makes me suspect impact/abrasion damage, as you would have had an un-aged layer of hypalon hiding within the seam.

Luck;

jky

[CJL]

It CAN be repaired as my Delta did exactly the same.

I would suggest that you repair as much as you can of the seam then add a "wear patch" (nothing more than another sheet of hypalon from your friendly local RIB dealer) over the top of the seam repair to give you the extra protection and air tight seal.

Remember that gluing hypalon is all about the preperation of the surfaces involved. The glueing is the easy bit. There is section on "how to" in the FAQ section on here.

Once you've done the one side you can glue another "wear patch" on the starboard size! If you look at some of the pictures on this site many boats already have this patch factory fitted.

Hope it works out.

[jyasaki]

Originally Posted by Paul F

Stephen,
Not being an expert on tubes (but there are a few on here that will pop up soon)

Poor choice of words, Paul.

jky

[BogMonster]

Originally Posted by CJL

It CAN be repaired as my Delta did exactly the same.

Thanks, any idea what caused it on yours? is it just fatigue in the tube? it seems a really odd place to fail... it is out of the way of any UV, out of the way of anything hitting it, and not particularly stressed, but looking close-up at the full size photos I took it looks as though the "orange surface" of the hypalon has delaminated from whatever is underneath.

I it is coming out of the water later on this afternoon anyway, so will have a better look and post some more pics from a better angle then.

Thanks

Stephen

[jwalker]

Stephen, what you should have is as shown in the picture below. I don't see the equivalent of the black part in your pic but it's probably because everything is orange. It is a vulnerable area of the tube.

You need to determine whether the hypalon is faulty. If not, then you need to peel back the black bit and insert a patch under it which reaches back over your damaged area and then re-glue the black patch. Avoid a forward facing edge. If it were me, I'd do the other side too while I was at it.

You can lift the hypalon by using a hot air gun and something to pick up the edge of the hypalon. A very blunt screwdriver or a shaped piece of wood. Once you have the edge lifted, clip on a mole grip, continue applying the heat whilst pulling the hypalon back on itself. It needs quite a bit of heat but don't burn it. A couple of mole grips and two folk is better.

If the folk from Humber read this, here's a note for you: It is plain daft not to have that black patch a wee bit longer and big enough to extend back to overlap the seam for protection.

[codprawn]

How hard exactly did you pump it???

[BogMonster]

Well I have it out of the water now and here are some more pics

The 3 points of failure (only 2 of which are leaking) seem to be along a line following around the tube, which suggests fatigue of some sort rather than damage, it would also explain why it blew out when I pumped it up. The other side looks OK though.

There isn't a black bit anywhere near the point of failure, that stops back close to where the tube is attached to the GRP.

I guess the best bet (when I find some glue...) will be to cut a strip of material to butt up against the forward seam (so there isn't too much of a forward facing edge to catch the water flow and peel back) and follow round the curve of the tube between the two seams - what do you think?

Codprawn, I don't have a pressure gauge but not excessively hard IMHO, such that if you gave the tube a fairly firm poke with your finger it would still yield in an inch or so I guess, maybe a little further. Put it this way I wouldn't have expected it to burst!

It still seems like an odd place to fail because if it was due to fatigue from the back of the tube thumping up and down I would have expected it to go just aft of the transom.

[codprawn]

Mice???

[Tim M]

Thats the lowest part of the tube. Are you sure it didn't get damaged by a rock or something. That would be my guess.....

[CJL]

Mooring line running under the tube????

Chris

[BogMonster]

No, I don't think it is an amphibious mouse

Tim, I have only had it for a month or so and I am fairly certain there was no sign of this damage when I bought it, it certainly didn't appear to be leaking till about ten days ago and I haven't been in any water shallow enough to hit a rock since I have had it.

Chris, fairly sure it is not a mooring line as I have had a mooring line running over the tube and where it was rubbing on the tube at one stage it restored the full "orangeness" without doing any damage, there is no sign of this where the damage is.

I am pretty sure it is a fatigue failure (even though I don't understand why) which worries me because even if I can patch it successfully, it might fail just next to the patch. You can't see it on the photos but there is a slightly "weakened" appearance following a line around the radius of the tube, going through all three failure points.

I have found a couple of people who think they have got some glue which they are going to dig out tomorrow (no idea what type it will be though).

This Hypalon stuff must be a really odd chemical makeup, I had a thought earlier and went and got some glue we had at work, used for tubeless tyre patches, this stuff is to ordinary vulcanising cement what Superglue is to Pritt-Stick, and normally sticks to anything vaguely rubbery like SH&& to a blanket! Wouldn't stick two off-cuts of the repair material together though... peeled apart very easily.

I think what I am going to try is a small patch over the immediate leak to try and make it air tight so I can pump the tube up, and once there is some pressure in it (so I have something to press against) then try a bigger patch over the whole area - I have a chunk of fabric about 1 foot x 3 feet for repairs.

[CJL]

You must use Bostick 242 (I think thats the right number) to glue hypalon.

Nothing else works.

Chris

[Alice]

Are there still any undercover Argy SBS hanging around that don't know that the war is over?

[AndrewH]

Originally Posted by CJL

You must use Bostick 242 (I think thats the right number) to glue hypalon.

Actually Bostick 2402 - but Chris is right, its the only thing that works

[Hightower]

Looks likely that you've hit some debris in the water whilst blatting along, this happened to me last year and took out my Transducer. I didn't notice the impact when it happened (too much noise) except the depth finder not working, but had a few small marks down the chines leading to my transducer.

Might not have caused an imidiate failier but could have weakend the area waiting for you to pump up the chamber and go BANG.

If you effect a repair yourself then I would recommend a large wear patch under each of the rear tubes to give more protection in the future.

[CJL]

Originally Posted by AndrewH

Actually Bostick 2402 - but Chris is right, its the only thing that works

Nearly!!!

C

[roycruse]

You definitely want to get hold of some large pieces of hypalon and make up the triangular wear patches as in jwalkers post - as he says most boats have them from new as its the most vulnerable part of the tubes.

When you tried the glue on your off cuts - I suspect its because you didn't prepare the surfaces as much as being the wrong glue. you need to rough up the surfaces a lot more than you think before gluing together. The outer skin of the hypalon is designed to repel pretty much anything so without a key nothing will stick to it.

Detailed instructions here http://www.rib.net/forum/showthread.php?t=4700

[roycruse]

I just nipped out to take a picture of my boat - you can only just make out the wear patch as its the same colour hypalon as the tube on my boat.

Funnily enough - on mine they stop right at the point where yours has gone - in the middle of the seam.