Dorade vent.

This one is specifically for other Albergers. In hunting for one of my damned deck leaks, I came upon a building defect in the dorade vent above the heads. The particular leak was coming through onto the port bulkhead between the saloon and the heads at the inboard deck end, a place water simply should not have been getting to. Dejected, I had drawn the conclusion that the balsa core in the deck was saturated, and that this was where the water had found its escape. A tip of sheer genius by Peter from medusa had me out on deck in the rain, dabbing food colouring in the likely places, trying to track the path of the leak. It was of great surprise to have discovered the dorade to be the culprit, but guilty it was.

The dorade box on the Alberg is an integral part of the boat’s deck moulding, which means that from deck there is no access to the area except for the hole where the vent is fitted. It also means that when it was built, the box had to be sealed from the underside while the deck was being built.

I cut the top of the dorade box away to gain sufficient access. Inside, a fibreglass plate had been glued in place, but due to its poor design and construction, the join between the plate and deck moulding was not sealed. Water had entered here, travelled through the deck, and out onto the aforementioned bulkhead.

I had taken this as confirmation of the balsa core being wet but, happily, found that the water had been traveling by a different path. Kalitsah (440) has a moulded liner on the underside of the deck and cabin-top distinct from the underside of the deck moulding itself. The deck, with its balsa core, would have been laid up as normal with glass laminated on either side of the core. The internal liner would have been bonded in later, creating a vboid in the areas where they did not marry fully. This gives the impression others may be familiar with of areas inside the cabin-top seemingly delaminating. This is not the case, rather, it is tha void between these two mouldings. That this void exists is of no detriment to the structure of the deck. It is none the less annowing, as it allows water getting in at one spot to get back out in quite another.

The dorade leak was easy to fix by grinding, filling and glassing the join. It is something I suggest to other Albergers is worth inspecting. It is worth noting that the forward winch mounts in the cockpit are built by the same method.