More On QCC Bulkheads And...

dry compartments. I spent a little time yesterday looking at dry compartment leaks and looked at bulkhead venting as Id read that QCC recently started venting the dry compartments. I have two QCC boats which are about two months old now.



I found that three of the four compartments were vented using a small pin hole in the bulkheads. (The fouth bulkhead had no evidence of a pin hold drilled in its bulkhead.) I found one gasket that was loose and I used some contact cement to reattach it. I used a light rubber lube and applied a very light coat to all of the hatch gaskets.



I used both boats during a rescues class yesterday which invloved filling the cockpits repetatively with water.



At the end of the day I looked at all four compartments. The two front compartments were dry as a bone. The aft compartment, (unvented) had about a cup of water in it. The second aft compartment had about a quarter of a cup of water.



I dont have enough information to base a lot of conclutions yet. But I think that the amount of water that I am shipping is so small that it is not a problem.



Mark

A cup of water
is not something that presents a danger in any scenario, as far as I know. If is more a matter of inconvenience depending on your use. It means that if you are going to put in things like a spare fleece vest or jacket for a day or evening paddle, you have to remember which is the dry hatch or have it in a dry bag. But there is an argument that you should have all your stuff in a dry bag anyway. The one sealed area that really needs to be dry for convenient use is the day hatch since that’s where a lot of last minute stuff or odds and ends like the last half of a sandwich gets tossed. (at least in my use, since I am not neat)

I Agree
The small amount of water found in only one of my compartments after filling the compartement more than a dozen times is not enough to worry about and I am not.



My boats dont have day hatches so I use a small waterproof deck bag to carry just a few things that I dont want to get soaked. I do have a medium sized dry bag for each boat that I will use to store a few more things that should stay dry on trips where I am taking more stuff.



Mark