Under seat "ice box" drain?

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Under seat "ice box" drain?

Postby RandO » Wed Jul 07, 2021 8:09 am

Hi all,
My DS II has that little storage area with a built in lid, under the port seat. It is not exactly 'water tight', and when water gets in it has to be pumped out and/or sopped up with a sponge. I am surprised there is no built in drain hole. Is it possible to drill a hole and let the water drain? I assume the water would drain into the bilge area and out the bilge drain. Or is that wishful thinking? Thoughts / advice?
Thanks!
Rand
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Re: Under seat "ice box" drain?

Postby GreenLake » Wed Jul 07, 2021 5:10 pm

Definitely don't let water drain into the area between the hulls.

You could do what O'Day did for the original DS1, which has a compartment at the transom. There's a drain hole there, but it connects sideways to the outside. In your case, you could drill a hole that connects to the cockpit, but like in the case of the DS1 you may need to fashion a bit of a "tube" because as I recall there's a gap between the inside of the storage to the vertical part of the seat. (This only works, if the compartment is not deeper than the cockpit floor).

Here's a way you can achieve that: drill from the compartment out, so there's no issue in locating the exit. Tape shut the hole on the compartment and work from the seat side: if there's an air gap, use a bit of expanding foam. Next, use a bent nail in a drill to remove some of the foam (create a cylinder of air space wider than the drainage. Fill with epoxy. (use wood flour or anything you have, to make a bit of a paste from the epoxy and push enough of it in there to fill a space wider than the hole you want.

When cured, re-drill the original hole. It will now have a "tube" of epoxy (and a bit of foam).

Or you could try to use some sort of foam strips to seal the lid.
~ green ~ lake ~ ~
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Re: Under seat "ice box" drain?

Postby RandO » Thu Jul 08, 2021 9:18 pm

Ahh, thanks GL. I hadn't thought of forming a simple drain directly into the cockpit! Sometimes the easiest solutions can be right in front of you but you don't see them until they are pointed out! I wonder if drilling a larger hole and then inserting some plastic piping, with a collar on both ends (sealed with 5200 or some such) would do the trick?
Much appreciated!
Rand
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Re: Under seat "ice box" drain?

Postby GreenLake » Thu Jul 08, 2021 10:55 pm

A bit of tubing might allow you to better match the low point in the box. Would allow doing an angle, if needed, but might be difficult to fit. Collars are annoying in that they prevent the last little bit of water from draining. (Applies to the box side, of course, no issue on the seat side). I'm sure you'll be able to come to a good solution. It's always easier when you can look at something in real life while pondering your options.

Also, consider that the seat may deform slightly under load. That means, the drain needs to either be really strong or a bit flexible.
~ green ~ lake ~ ~
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Re: Under seat "ice box" drain?

Postby RandO » Sat Jul 10, 2021 7:50 am

Good points as always GL! I need to drill the hole first to see the full length of what I’ll need, from inside the box to the outside wall of the cockpit. I’m not too concerned with deformation under load, as long as it works at some point when there is water build up. It’s not really a huge problem, more of an aggravation. I don’t understand why they didn’t build a drain in when it was designed. But either way, it’s still a great sail! Thanks for your input.
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Re: Under seat "ice box" drain?

Postby GreenLake » Sat Jul 10, 2021 12:34 pm

Looking forward to some description/pictures of how you managed this. As to why it's not standard? Cost would be one reason and similar lids that are integrated in seats are common on bigger boats to access cockpit lockers, but then are usually sealed.
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Re: Under seat "ice box" drain?

Postby Alan » Sat Jul 10, 2021 2:01 pm

I'd be interested too. I just took a look at mine (1980 DSII) and the bottom of the storage box is lower than the cockpit floor. It even looks like it's lower than the drain channel, just outside the box.

There are rusty stains in the bottom of the box, so it must have had water in it at some point. I retrieved some ancient rusty tools from the box when I got the boat, so maybe they were the source of the rust.

Apparently the box was never sealed. The lid is spring loaded in the closed position by two pieces of 3/16-inch (or thereabouts) shock cord, but there's no sign of any gasket material in the area where the lid would have seated on the box.
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Re: Under seat "ice box" drain?

Postby GreenLake » Sat Jul 10, 2021 3:56 pm

Wow, that's interesting. The way I've pictured the geometry was always that the corner between cockpit floor and seat front was pretty close to meeting the curve of the hull and that any recess, unless it was has a curved or angled floor would by necessity be limited to be more shallow. (The time I spent sailing on a DSII is a few years in the past, so my memories of the way things are configured becoming a bit more uncertain).

At the back of the cockpit there's a bit of a depression where the cockpit drain is situated. Is the ice box lower than that? If not, a drain could be fashioned to that location with a bit of flexible tubing.

I dimly recall reading some discussion about sealing the lid, you might try to see whether it can be found on this forum.
~ green ~ lake ~ ~
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Re: Under seat "ice box" drain?

Postby Alan » Sun Jul 11, 2021 7:16 pm

GreenLake,
Yeah, I'd been thinking the same thing about the shape of the box. Turns out, on second look, that that's exactly the situation. The outboard wall of the box follows the curve of the hull, then it flattens out on the bottom, but with a very slight slant so that the inboard edge of the flat part is slightly lower than the outboard edge of the flat part. Here:

DSII storage box.jpg
DSII storage box.jpg (163.97 KiB) Viewed 7627 times


I measured the height of the inboard box wall (shown at the top of the photo) on inside and outside. On the inside, it's 9-1/8 inches from the bottom of the box to the top of the wall. On the outside, it's 8-3/4 inches from the bottom of the drain channel (just outside the box) to the top of the wall.

The drain channel runs along the seat wall to the aft end of the cockpit floor, where it meets the low area that you mentioned, which has the factory DePersia autobailer in the center, here:

DSII cockpit bailer sump.jpg
DSII cockpit bailer sump.jpg (157.14 KiB) Viewed 7627 times


There’s a matching drain channel on the other side.

I should note that in the photo the low area looks flat-bottomed, but it’s actually a shallow V, with the lowest point in the center where the autobailer is.

The low area (I think of it as a sump) is definitely lower than the bottom of the ice box. The drain channels are about a half inch deep at the forward ends, and 2-1/8 inches deep at the aft ends where they enter the low area. I assume this is to allow water in the cockpit to run aft down the drain channels into the sump, where the autobailer will pull it out if the boat is going fast enough to create the necessary venturi effect.

So, your idea of running a drain tube along the channel would work. That still leaves the question of how to drill the hole that connects the box to the drain channel. Maybe I’ll come up with something if I puzzle over it some more.
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Re: Under seat "ice box" drain?

Postby GreenLake » Sun Jul 11, 2021 8:15 pm

Thanks. These pictures do refresh memory.

I would thin that you may need an inspection port or two to be able to retrofit this.

Are there parts that look like a big hollow rivet? With the "collar" that @RandO wrote about on one end and a bit of pipe on the other? Drill a hole for one of those at each end and connect with the transparent PVC pipe on the inside of the seat (for which you need inspection ports).

On the other hand, looking at these pictures, it should be a snap to seal this box using some closed-cell foam weatherstripping at the underside of the lid. The reason is that the box is designed well, with a drainage channel all around (like a real cockpit locker). So you never should have standing water, just splashes or water running around the lid (clinging t the surface and then dripping). You don't show the lid, but it should normally have an edge that is lower than the edge of the "well" of the box to make that more difficult.

Perhaps the designers thought that a bit of lip would be enough to positively prevent water from getting in. Probably the case that the drainage at the outside isn't voluminous enough so that water can spill over the outside edge of the "well". Before you spend all your time drilling, try adding some weatherstripping to the lid so it forms a seal with that edge of the well and perhaps the two athwartship ones. Then dump a bucket over it and see whether it seals. (Whether or not to seal the fourth side depends on whether you think a bit of ventilation should be present and/or whether you observe water getting in from that side).

(If the water you observe is condensation only, then the fix would be to keep the lid open during storage, or wedged open, if your winter tarps are as leaky as mine :)
~ green ~ lake ~ ~
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Re: Under seat "ice box" drain?

Postby RandO » Fri Jul 16, 2021 9:55 pm

Alan, well done with posting pictures. I've been giving this a lot of thought because the amount of standing water in the box is very minimal most times. It only seems to be a problem if/when I power wash the boat. I do have some water that gets in during normal usage, but as I said it is minimal. I agree with Greenlake, that the design is actually well done and perhaps installing a drain is going overboard.

With lousy weather and other projects, I have not been out to sail yet (argh!). I just got it into the water last week, set the mast and have to adjust the stays a bit. (I had a stay snap while sailing last summer, but was able to avoid a disaster by sailing back to the mooring with the broken stay on the lee side - pure luck that it worked out that way!). I'm going to try some closed cell foam seal around the seat cover before I start drilling. I really think that will be all that is needed. We'll see! I'll post on this thread after I've done this and used the boat some to try it out. Thanks for the discussion gents!
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Re: Under seat "ice box" drain?

Postby IslandFarmer » Tue Sep 21, 2021 5:28 pm

On my mooring, my cockpit is covered, but I have noticed that on the trailer without a cover (pre- and post-season, but not over the winter), my cooler box gets a couple of inches after a good rain. I hadn't paid much attention to the issue ... a mild annoyance ... but a couple of weeks ago after a rain, I thought about it and think that the water must be getting in through the shock cord holes....

So I'm curious (Rand and Alan) if either of you had any success with closed cell foam.
1983 DSII 12250
Stonington CT
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Re: Under seat "ice box" drain?

Postby Alan » Wed Sep 22, 2021 4:51 pm

Island Farmer,
You may be right about water coming in through the shock cord holes. Taking another look just now, I don't see any other likely entry point.

There's a shallow channel all along where the seat meets the hull, which would route water right into the box area if the boat was sitting with its stern slightly elevated. Even so, there are big drain channels on each side of the box that should route any water into the cockpit ("should" being the operative word, there).

The PO kept a small toolbox in the storage box, which got water in it, which meant that the boat arrived at my house with a box of rusty tools and a rust stain on the bottom of the box. I tend to overprepare, so my personal tools and spares collection won't fit in the storage box.

For that reason, I haven't done anything to keep water out of the box, or to install a drain. My approach is just to use a big towel to blot up any water that might get in.

The lid on my boat sits about 1/4 inch lower than the seat, so you could install a gasket of some sort and still have the lid sit flush with the seat. I think I'd also install a latch to give a tight seal. Looking at it carefully, it does seem like that would work.

By the way, I’ve had good luck using white 10X20 tarps from the orange big box store as boat covers. They last several years before UV catches up with them, I imagine because the white color reflects a lot of sunlight.
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Re: Under seat "ice box" drain?

Postby GreenLake » Wed Sep 22, 2021 5:42 pm

+1 on the white tarps. Except I get them at my local H/W store - which, unusually, also sells quite a range of items that are useful for boat maintenance (even some epoxy). So I like to support them
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Re: Under seat "ice box" drain?

Postby Alan » Wed Sep 22, 2021 11:13 pm

Wow, GL, I'm really glad you mentioned that. I thought to look at the website of my locally-owned small hardware store (which I'd really rather do business with) and sure enough, they have the same quality tarp, but 12 X 20, for three bucks less than the big-box 10 X 20, in stock. That possibility hadn't occurred to me.

I'm wandering off topic here, but a local hardware store with a good boating section is in Morro Bay, California. Two others (sadly, now closed) were the K-Marts in Jackson, Wyoming and South Lake Tahoe. The best one I've run across outside of a dedicated boating store was Canadian Tire in Canmore, Alberta. Left to my own devices, I could have spent a lot of time and money in that store . . .
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