About a month before Dan left for his South Pacific Ocean crossing, we pulled the Avon inflatable runabout off the dock behind our home and put it in the garage The fiberglass hull portion of the boat had developed a fairly steady leak that required us to run the bilge pump frequently every time we took it out. We finally had a chance to track it down and work on it. It appears that the seam between the hull and the transom had developed a crack on the starboard side and was allowing water to flow freely. This was discovered by filling the hull with water and watching where it poured out. Of course the area to be repaired was in the very inaccessible deepest recesses of the bilge.
Rather then grind away and re-fiberglass the joint, we decided to use penetrating epoxy applied from inside the bilge (we used product from Total Boat). Our idea was that since the epoxy has the consistency of water until it’s set, it would flow into the compromised areas and seal them. We removed the outboard (ceiling hoist), pumped the fuel from the tank, cleaned the bilge best we could, tilted the dingy with the port side transom down, applied tape to the exterior to cover the crack and poured the epoxy mixture into the bilges void. It worked great! After letting the epoxy cure for 72 hours we reassembled everything, hooked the trailer to the truck and drove to the local launch ramp. The bilge is as dry as it has been since we’ve owned the Avon. We’ll call this a win for now!
