Hey Guy's
Thank you Bill of "Best Day" for you complements advice and encouragement to help keep me trying to learn how to post my pictures and albums.
I’m grateful to have learned a lot from the many participants on this site over the years. It's a pleasure to give back.
I'm sorry to hear so many of you 23 Venture owners having water problems with your boats. It was pretty disappointing for me as well to have to work my way through so many problematic details after paying top dollar for a new boat.
Christy and I are so happy with our boat now. She performs in many ways better than I had anticipated and I’m pleased with the fuel economy. I can see us owning and enjoying this boat for a long time to come.
I agree with a past post, that any penetration into a cored area must be epoxy sealed. Caulking just doesn't cut it, not even for the short term. You are fooling yourself if you apply a good layer of expensive caulking and think it will seal a cored penetration.
If you check my pictures out, have a look at the repairs that I made for the leaky Wallas stove exhaust. The Wallas stove isn’t perfect, but it sure is nice to have such dry warmth in the wet and cold times. In our photo album you’ll see that I replaced the one gallon fuel container with a 5 gallon fuel container. We can now run the Wallas 24 hours a day for over a week before I need to add fuel. I carry a 1000 watt Honda Generator to keep the batteries charged when needed. We also carry a one burner Origo alcohol stove and one Origo alcohol heater. Their great as an added bonus and often come in handy.
I'm pleased with the repairs that I have made in the folders shown in my album, and would follow the same procedures if I had to do it over again, with my present level of knowledge. Our boat lives in the water and is dry from one end to the other. The inspection holes are a must in my opinion. When opportunity has it, I use my two portable battery operated fans to blow air down into the inspection holes. These fans require 4-D cell batteries and can run 24 hours a day for over a week before they need battery replacement. They can be plugged into a 120 volt outlet as well. I don’t have any water leaks, but I’m careful to watch for condensation build up under the decks. We enjoy boating all year round here in British Columbia. With the Wallas stove, the Venture wall insulation and a couple of portable, battery operated fans, we have no condensation problems in the boat. We stay warm, dry and comfortable all year round.
We have no blown in foam anywhere in our boat. It seems Fluid Marine was going through some growing development procedures in reference to so many differently built boats.
Bill of "Best Day".
I chose to glass in any openings under the water line, including the step/storage box drains, port and starboard in the cockpit.
I now have a 5 foot length of flex hose laying in the motor well along with another 5 foot length of hose that can be easily screwed together. This 3/4” hose connects to the inlet on the wash down pump located below the battery’s and between the gas tanks. It runs out the same hole on the starboard side with all the motor controls. The ¾” flexible white water lines all have plastic screw on caps to keep any unwanted stuff out of the lines. I can now throw that hose over the side to suck up wash down water when I want. The other idea that I like about this is that I have another bilge pump for the cockpit area, if I want it. I also carry a 25 foot length of garden hose for washing down my anchor rode if needed and another 6 foot length of garden hose for discharge. I can now pump out another boat, my dingy, or anything else within 35 feet.
I also put a “T” in my fresh water line under the drawers on the starboard side and a matching brass/chrome male hose bib on the starboard side in the cockpit, so I can pump out my water tank at any time to refresh it, give some fresh water to someone else, or use fresh water to clean our porta potti.
Back to water problems.
There were no ventilation holes in the battery compartment. A safety no no, as far as I’ve learned. Also there were no drain holes in the battery compartment to get rid of trapped water. I also vented the storage box/steps, port and starboard, as I found that mold would grow in there if I didn’t.
Anyways Guy’s I think the Cape Cruisers 23’s /C-dory Venture 23’s are beautifully designed boats. They were to be the next generation of economically run skimmer/cruisers for their size . I think most manufacturers must go through growing pains when they develop a new product line. Maybe multiple change in ownership and challenging economic times have made it very difficult during the production of these boats. The problems that we are dealing with are small compared to how many good well thought out ideas that went into the development of these boats. I’m trying to see the greater picture now.
I wish you all well with your repairs and that you get them completed quickly, economically, and get back to enjoying these beautiful boats.
All the Best
Cheers
Ross