Replacing Seacocks

[dave6330]

God willing, I'll be coming off of a one year deployment this June and my boat has been in drydock since I was mobilized. Before putting her up, I replaced the head and noticed that, even thought the ball **** was closed, water still ingressed through the head's inlet hose. I'm kind of a novice, but to me this sounded like a bad seacock and something I'll have to fix before I launch the boat when I get back home. I'm thinking of contacting the boat yard and having someone do the job for me (before I get home) to save time between my home coming and actually being able to get out sailing again.

Here's my question: ball park, of course, does anyone have any guestimates as to how much I can expect this to run me?

[brianbourgeois]

max 2 hours labour plus $100.00 for parts and that is being generous.
i replaced all of the through hulls and ball valves in my 32' and it took half a day.

[dave6330]

Thanks for the quick comeback! I think the money will be well spent. This is a job that I'm a little leary of. And, for me, every two hour job takes at least a couple of days and several trips to the store. Not the kind of frustration I want when I get home.

Thanks again.

[camaraderie]

Dave...it is unusual for a ball valve that is shut to leak. It occurs to me that you may be experiencing back seepage through the joker valve in the other direction. Have you actually removed the intake line from the ball valve and seen the seepage?
You may be absolutely right...just trying to make sure you don't spend you don't spend those deployment bucks unnessecarily.

[brak]

I would second camaraderie on that.
However, replacing just the ball valve itself isn't much work - unscrew the old one (might take some effort and really big wrench ), screw on the new one with some teflon tape, and you are done.

I had all the thruhulls replaced in my boat last seazon. Hired a "pro" that botched the job (i am not naming names here but if you are planning any work in Annapolis, ask me before hiring ). So I had to fire him halfway and do it all myself. Turned out to be not all that hard really - and I got to properly epoxy and seal edges of thru-hull openings (they were just cut out before and the only seal was 5200).

[sailingdog]

Generally, the ball valve and the thru-hull are separate pieces, and replacing just the ball-valve seacock isn't all that big a task. If the boat is in the water, you will have to dive to plug the exterior of the thru-hull, but not a huge deal in any case.

I agree that it is very unusual for a ball valve-type seacock to leak if the ball shuts completely. Well worth taking Cam's suggestion and making sure what is actually leaking before doing any work.

[rtbates]

I have no idea what your boat is worth, but you might consider replacing those ball valves with real seacocks.
http://spartanmarine.com/catalog.html

Randy Cape Dory 25D Seraph

[dave6330]

Thanks - and again, I'm going to have to make a public display of my ignorance. On our boat, the inlet for the head goes straight from the back of the head itself to a seacock. There are no other lines that join with the single hose connecting the seacock to the head. I'm not sure what a joker valve is but I don't see any other explanation for the seawater coming in (after I disconnected the hose from the back of the head) than thru the seacock.

If time were not an issue, I'd probably go ahead and do the job myself so I could fully understand the mechanism, but the sailing season is going to be fairly short - Summer in Alaska will almost be gone by the time I get home - and I'd like to put CIRRUS back in the water as soon as possible. That's why I'm thinking of having the boatyard do the work before I redeploy.