Help with leaks

[tmarsh]

I just bought a used 10' Mercury air-deck with a Mercury 8hp four-stroke. The boat has a pinhole just under the bow hook which I tried to patch yesterday. I left it fully inflated over night and this morning all three toon chambers had no air pressure. I aired it back up and checked the entire boat with soapy water for more leaks, but didn't find any besides the hole I fixed yesterday. The patch didn't hold so it leaked all night.
Are the chambers connected with small holes in between? Because I couldn't find any leaks in the side chambers but they still leaked out overnight, and the whole boat looked uniformly floppy this morning like that one hole drained the entire boat.

Or maybe Im not using the right method to find leaks?
Any insight would be great, this is my first inflatable.

 

[Sea Rider]

Welcome to Iboats,

You should patch well the pinhole you badly patched , once there is no air leak, inflate fully bow chamber, check that side tubes are not inflated along, if any of them is inflated you have a bad internal baffle. Air from bow chamber is leaking into side tubes. If all baffles are kaput, could be repaired, but that's a costly job. Have you checked if all air valves are sealing spot on, apply soappy water on them with outer caps removed.

Using that sib in its current condition is extremely dangerous. Any pinhole on any tube will deflate all the air chambers one by one in a row, very bad music. Each chamber must remain fully inflated by means of its own air valve.

If no air leaks were found during the soappy water test, could have hidden internal leaks where tubes joins with lower deck fabric. Is sib's fabric in good shape, flexible, non porous, doesn't have cracks, scratched parts, fabric abrassions ? If any of those are found, there are internal glue sealers that could be applied to seal internal air chambers to perfection.

Happy Boating

 

[Brusac]

I had a small leak I could not find. I stopped at my local West Marine store and got some sealant you pour in the tubes, that worked real well. Word of caution though - don't use too much, I had to resort to extreme measures to get the excess sealant out...

http://forums.iboats.com/forum/gene...odifications-and-tips?p=10222496#post10222496
http://forums.iboats.com/forum/gene...odifications-and-tips?p=10229100#post10229100