It took a couple of weeks to figure out where the water was coming from in my aluminum boat, and I am 90% sure that it's a leaking bow eye. With two people on the casting deck, the bow eye is totally submerged and we get water. When I'm fishing by myself, there is much less water and the bow eye is out of the water more than it's under water. I did a little bit of reading about leaky eyes and they can take on a pretty good amount of water when submerged because the water entering the holes is pressurized.
- Filled the boat with as much water as I felt the trailer could handle, no leaks.
- Lowered the tongue to slosh water to the front of the boat, no leaks, but the bow eye isn't submerged
- When I fish by myself, little to no water
- Put two people on the bow spider rigging and we get a pretty healthy amount of water after a few hours of fishing
The question is, how do I fix this? Tracker installed the bow eye, then poured foam in the compartment that holds the bolts. No way to get to it from the inside. I can guarantee there's a pretty stout brace running down the length of the deck right where I'd put an inspection port to hack out the foam from the topside, so that isn't going to work. The deck is welded to the boat, so the entire bow would have to be taken apart to get to it.
I'm wondering if there's an injectible sealant that I could push into the gap between the mounting plate and the ridges in the ice runner. Does anybody know of a sealant like this? Any other ideas?
