Captain Tolley's Creeping Crack Cure

[Marco Flamingo]

A search here showed one mention of this product (recommended for a tool kit) with no comment. I just bought some for sealing the teak trim on my other boat's windows and thought I'd mention how it worked. I actually applied the stuff prior to getting it out from covered moorage and seeing where it actually leaks, but the application is so easy that I thought I would start with an ounce of prevention. I just juiced up everywhere that might be a problem.

The stuff comes in a plastic squeeze bottle in a plastic bag. Mine already had leaked and there was a thin layer of cloudy plastic material inside of the bag. It looked about like seam sealer used on camping gear or dried HH 66 for repairing PVC material. But this stuff is water based.

It is about like milk and therefore messy to work with as it runs down any vertical surface. It dries quite fast and therefore you need to wipe off any excess immediately or you will have a streak that might show on some surfaces (as I learned). Once dried, it is difficult to remove with water and I didn't want to try anything more powerful on a painted surface.

It soaks into any tiny crack and can even move up through capillary action. When it dries, it leaves enough flexible solids to fill the void. It kind of looks like watered down Elmer's Glue and maybe that's what it is. But the successful reviews, and it's relatively cheap price, make it not really worth experimenting with a homemade solution.

This could be a cheap insurance policy for through deck fittings into a balsa core. Not as good as removing a fitting and resetting it in an epoxy filled mounting hole, but something to think about. It gets its best reviews from those pesky drips where water is weeping in through some tiny crack. No need to pull and recaulk a porthole or whatever. A couple drops of Capt. Tolley's might do the trick.

Mark