An Affordable Cruising Caramaran
	Contact Us
	Repairing Catalac Catamaran window leaks
	To say that I've had a problem with my windows leaking would be the understatement of the year. Catalac Catamarans have had a chronic window leak problem and yes.... my boat is no exception. The leaking windows have been my pet project especially the port and starboard cabin window units. Let me tell you what I've done so far, and what works and what doesn't.   The first thing I did was to grab a caulking gun and put a bead of latex caulk around the exterior of the offending windows... I was neat and meticulous and very proud when it was done. Until the next rainstorm that is.... the result was no effect at all. Everything still leaked.   Next, I made sure I sat in the boat and forced myself to watch where the leaks were coming from. My girlfriend grabbed a marina hose while I sat in a closed up 100 degree boat and watched.... no leaks at all.   If you're confused, you should have seen me.   Finally,  I headed for the boat during a hard rain and found leaks all over the place. What was interesting was how the windows were leaking. Near as I could tell there were two sources of water. The first, was the glass frame seal gasket. This was dried and cracked. It's apparent in this photo. The other leak almost seems by design. The track at the bottom of the window is shared by the entire group. The removable window, allows water to collect in this bottom track. It has weep holes which are supposed to drain it out, but guess what happens? The water migrates down the track and fills up the downhill window track which then begins spilling it all over the place.   Now that I had the problem in hand, I came up with Plan A and Plan B. Plan A was to replace the window seal without removing the windows. Plan B was to unbolt the windows, bring them home, disassemble them and replace the seal. I figured Plan B was too much work and if I tried Plan A and it failed, I could always fall back on good ole plan B.   To put plan A into effect I used two tools. The first was my cordless Hi speed drill fitted with a Nylon Brush attachment. This looks exactly like the wire wheels you can buy as a drill attachment, but instead of steel, it's nylon. The other tool, looks like a small ice pick with the tip bent 90 degrees about 1/2 inch from the end. I found this at a Harbor Freight store for about $1.00   The drill/ nylon wheel positively destroyed what was left of the exposed glass to frame seal. This appears to be the remains of a 22 year old gasket. I started on the outside, one window at a time and was able to remove the seal all around the window to a depth of 1/4 inch. I used the pick to to clean up the rough spots.  When using the Nylon wheel, it's important to angle the drill so that the metal hub doesn't touch the window.  Once that was done I washed the window, allowing water to get into the now wide open seal. You see, my caulking material needs water to cure.   It's time to talk about sealants. I selected 3M 4200 quickset. It's messy but will last 20 years (I'm sure not planning on doing this again). This stuff has it's good and bad points. It's the messiest 'goo' I've ever used, and sticks to everything. I grabbed some painter's tape and ran it around the glass perimeter, This greatly reduced clean up time. I then utilized my best tool ( my fingers) to smear caulk into the gap,  It's important to use the pick tool to push it in deep and then refill the gap until I had one edge completed. I did the same around the entire window and then immediately removed the tape and moved on to the next window. When done, I repeated the procedure on the inside. Note about the inside, my windows have rubber corner pieces in each interior corner of every fixed window. I removed these before I started and tossed them into a pail of water to soak.r> When I finished I had 1/4 inch bead of the best marine sealant around each window, inside and out. I then cleaned up those rubber pieces and using latex caulk I placed them back into their tracks putting extra caulk around the pieces that border the removable windows.   In short... this works (I have had no window leaks for the past year) and hope this will be of some use to you. Email me with any specific questions.
Go directly to the top of this page

Copyright © 2010 all rights reserved	designed by Amberdell Computer Technologies
	privacy policy