Centaur thru hull tests

[Max Shanks]

Hello from the States! I am now a proud Centaur owner and this is my first time using the WOA forum. My wife and I just purchased a 1972 Centaur. It is in desperate need of scrubbing and many other maintenance tasks, so it is sitting outside my workshop now. When I bought her she had been sitting out of the water for at least two years that I know of, maybe more, so I have never seen her actually float. So I have this somewhat terrifying thought of getting her all cleaned and shiny, and having her put in the lake only to have water pouring in from every thru-hull connection! Is there any feasible way to test the connections, or any special maintenance I should do prior to launching her? Thanks!

[rhumlady]

I would suggest that as you don't know what the state of them is it would be wise to take a day to remove check and clean them all before resending them. That way you know what you are dealing with in the future. There are normally not too many to deal with. Google will provide all the info required. One thing that may go against that is getting at some of them as I believe the heads seacocks can be difficult to get at. I look at this sort of thing as a learning curve and am usually happy to know how to deal with things that may crop up when away from the dock.

Goodluck and come back to us for any help you may need.

[aquaplane]

A Centaur has 6 seacocks.

The engine has one in the port side locker under the berth by the companionway. This one has a strainer built in. Mine is a gate valve.

The cockpit drains are a bit bigger and the port side one is in the same locker as the engine inlet, the Stbd one is at the other side sharing a locker with a battery (on my boat). I changed mine from gate valves to ball valves.

The galley sink sea cock is in the locker under the sink. Again, changed to ball vale.

The last 2 are different, they are Blakes tapered cone cocks for the loo, they are near the mast compression post.

I work on the principle that if it's not broken don't fix it.

I wouldn't touch any skin fittings.

Any gate valves I would replace with ball valves.

The Blakes vales I would remove the inserts, lap them in with compound as the instructions to be found via Google, and replace them.

When the boat is still in the slings check for water.

[Max Shanks]

Thanks for the information gentlemen! I have found all the seacocks but I did not know about some of them being Blakes. I will do the research to change the inserts and the valves on all the others. I do prefer ball valves too. Thanks again!