Sailing Thing #57: Gasket repair (Thing that kinda sucks about sailing 7)
The gasket is quite simply a piece of plastic, slit in half, that forms a sort of overlapped opening for the centreboard in a 470 (and several other centreboard dinghies) to slide in and out of the boat. Its purpose is to block water from spouting up through the centreboard casing and flooding the boat while sailing. So it's a pretty good little thing ... except when it gets damaged. And then it's a real bitch to repair!
The gasket is stuck or glued onto the underside of the boat, so anytime we need to fix it, we have to flip the boat onto its side.
Rolled up, the gasket just looks like this:
Once stuck onto the boat, tape is put on either side and the front of the gasket for safety, so there's less chance of water infiltrating the glue/tape. Which means ... if you're changing the gasket, you have to rip off all the tape, and the gasket, and then clean off the glue or tape residue. Which usually involves an hour of scrubbing with acetone. Not my favourite thing to do.
Double-sided tape is probably the easiest way to put a new gasket on once you've got the boat side clean. But it has to be high quality stuff and you don't find that all that easily. Contact glue works as a good alternative - this kind of adhesive is put on both sides to be stuck together when wet, allowed to dry, and then you stick it and the adhesive will be really strong. I always use my finger to apply the glue, so while I wait for it to dry, I get to pick it off my hands.
It's finicky work, though, because contact glue is so strong that if you accidentally contact two parts that shouldn't be, it's going to come apart if you peel it off to restick. You can't.
So although it's the cleaning part I hate the most, sticking the new gasket on so that it's straight, even, and then doing the tape without air bubbles is difficult and a bit nerve-wracking.
This is one of my least favourite bits of boat work!
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The gasket is stuck or glued onto the underside of the boat, so anytime we need to fix it, we have to flip the boat onto its side.
Rolled up, the gasket just looks like this:
Once stuck onto the boat, tape is put on either side and the front of the gasket for safety, so there's less chance of water infiltrating the glue/tape. Which means ... if you're changing the gasket, you have to rip off all the tape, and the gasket, and then clean off the glue or tape residue. Which usually involves an hour of scrubbing with acetone. Not my favourite thing to do.
Double-sided tape is probably the easiest way to put a new gasket on once you've got the boat side clean. But it has to be high quality stuff and you don't find that all that easily. Contact glue works as a good alternative - this kind of adhesive is put on both sides to be stuck together when wet, allowed to dry, and then you stick it and the adhesive will be really strong. I always use my finger to apply the glue, so while I wait for it to dry, I get to pick it off my hands.
It's finicky work, though, because contact glue is so strong that if you accidentally contact two parts that shouldn't be, it's going to come apart if you peel it off to restick. You can't.
So although it's the cleaning part I hate the most, sticking the new gasket on so that it's straight, even, and then doing the tape without air bubbles is difficult and a bit nerve-wracking.
This is one of my least favourite bits of boat work!
---
Take the 100 things challenge @ 100things_index!
Masterlist Progress: 57/100