[jergofish]

k9reno, thanks for the reply. My problem is that I plan to keep the boat in the water ten months out of the year. It will be in a covered berth and the only time it will get wet is in some light rain or during the time I do a washdown, mostly of the deck and some sea spray on rough days which won't be many since the area is in the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta rather than the ocean.

Becuase it will be in the water I won't have the luxery (or pain?) of having to trailer the boat and let it sit with the transom drain plug out.

Has anyone figured out the chief offending areas where water gets into the inner hull? and are all of the four inner hull foam stringers interconnected at the transom area? In other words, does each of the five areas have to be drained seperately or do all of them come together at the stern?

Looking at the transom area from the bilge hatch cover it appears that I could drill a hole into the bulkhead that's aft of the bilge pump and only be about two to three inches up from the hull's exterior. That would mean that the most that could collect in the transom cavity is about two to three inches of water in the lowest triangle of the transom. If all that's there is plastic and foam that small amount of water should not be a problem.

A major concern though is whether the stainless keel stringers are also connected to the inner hull cavity so that water in the transom cavity will reach the stringers. With the Rule seal, we'd never know until it blistered and ruptured.

If what I've written still indicates that I'm clueless about the problem, maybe somone that's been there could make a sketch, photo it and post it to help us "clueless" people out. It would sure be appreciated since I'd like to be proactive on the whole deal rather than reactive.

A final thought. If I am somewhere near correct in my assessment of the problem, and I were to drill the right sized hole (s), I could plug it (them) with a thermos stopper so that I could drain the area and then plug it, similar to the exterior plug.