Hi all,
I've got a 2013 hobie tandem island which started to take on more water than usual at the end of the fishing season last year. Over the winter I decided to track down the leaks and fix them. I've toyed with the idea of adding an electric bilge, but that's just a bandaide. It always leaked water through the front hatch so I decided to fix that using Mechanic Mike's fix on youtube, and now that hatch is watertight. I recently took the boat out to get some dungeness crabs before salmon starts and I still collected about 3-5 gallons in only about 3 hours of being on the water. And it was calm that day. However, I do have a motor and I sit solo in the backseat so the rear hatch and rudder lines are constantly either underwater or getting sprayed. I RTV'd the rear hatch and went out again, and still picked up 2-3 gallons of water.
Today I filled the hull halfway with water and nothing leaked. Next I tried the soap pressure test and I got a lot of bubbles coming from the rudder lines. People say that is typical so I'm not sure what to think. In particular my rudder line tubes are cracked and if I look from the inside of the boat, I can see light coming in from one of them. The lines themselves are fine, so I don't want to just go ahead and replace the tubes/lines if I don't really need to. Anyway, what do you guys think? Is it possible the rudder tubes are cracked and water is coming in fast?
In two weeks salmon season starts and I'll be taking the boat 6-7 miles offshore. I don't want to be 6-7 miles out with a hull filled with water.
Here are some pictures of the rudder line tubes. Let me know what you think. Do they look like they need to be replaced? Disregard the black RTV on one of the tubes
https://photos.app.goo.gl/TspFMhiWdhJNzjg99
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