sound of water in 5.4 SR hull

buzz989 · 27 May 2010, 22:15

Can anyone please help me to find water that is trapped in my hull. I have a 5.4 searider that has had the front holes glassed over and the rear hole has a bung in place to drain water out from the hull void.
The problem I have is that there is water trapped somewhere but it does not come out of the rear hole. I have cut an inspection hatch through the floor just in front of the transom that leads to the 'flotation' chamber full of foam. It is bone dry!
The floor has been replaced at some time in the past as it is an ex-dive rib. Are there any other hidden chambers where the water could be trapped. I reckon there is about a bucketful of water sloshing around somewhere. It sounds like it runs from front to back when I tilt the bow up.
Any ideas?

Nos4r2 · 27 May 2010, 22:18

There aren't any as standard that'd sound like that.

Maybe it's got an inbuilt fuel tank installed when the floor was replaced and you can hear something in it?

ed_dash · 28 May 2010, 02:49

I know that in myold SR4 there was 2 separate tanks in the flooding hull section, they were bunged up and didnt fill but i used to have to put my hand up the big flooding hole at the back to get the bungs in and out. They hardly had any water in but i didnt know that till i looked. I think i have read on here at some point that they were designed to limit the amount of water that flooded under the deck and speed up acceleration. Not sure whether the SR5.4 has the same tanks but it would make sense.

try putting your hand down the hatch and see if the hull is completely void of compartments? mine were 2 big tanks running down each side, leaving the flooding part in the centre of the boat.

mdt · 28 May 2010, 06:49

On the 5.4 there is a second flotation tank at the bow end I think it starts about a foot or so back from the bow. I think it would be quite hard to take the floor up without causing some damage to the tanks so some water might have got in there. But it is only about 2 foot long, so I it would not sound like the water was running all the length of the hull?

buzz989 · 29 May 2010, 08:23

Thanks for your advice so far. On closer inspection I think it may be between the new floor and the old floor. If it isn't too much I will not bother with it anymore. My main concern is whether the water would damage the new floor in any way. The new floor is about 1" thick marine ply that was really tough to get through!

Nos4r2 · 29 May 2010, 13:36

They didn't take the old floor out? That's really not good at all.

buzz989 · 29 May 2010, 20:53

Hi Nos, thanks for your help. Because I cut through the new floor and the top of the rear flotation tank I thought that perhaps the old floor was still there. I am now satisfied that the old floor was removed properly.
There is no obvious sign of a fuel tank being present. Do you know the dimesions of the two flotation tanks and exactly where the front one is?