Water leaking at rub rail

I had part of my boat painted last summer. Every since then my bilge seemed to run much more often than I remembered before. I finaly traced it to coming in the screw holes for the rub rail. What is the best way to seal this back up?

Silicone caulking/sealant.

I figured that, anything specific I should look for?

Get some marine grade silicone. You can get it at a boat shop, or order it online.

I would recommend 3M 5200 fast cure.

how often is your rubrail in the water?

^ that's what I was thinking. Surfing is all I came up with.

I'd also check your exhaust tubes and the thru-hull flanges they connect to. Being a 10yr old boat, the tubes could be leaking into the bilge.

Jon, a wakesurf customer of ours has a maristar like you that surfs a lot and he was having water come in through the rubrail as well. he ended up finding out that his hull was seperating.
i would get that checked out.

DO NOT USE 5200

that is meant for below water-line, and is a pain to remove

use 4200 or any marine grade caulk

yes, sounds like the hull is separating from the top deck

I was going to ask about the 5200 being "permanent" I thought I learned that when reading about plumbing ballast.

My rub rail is not underwater, and yes, the problem is MUCH worse at wakesurf speeds. The water hits the hull and shoots straight up the side and under the rub rail causing the leak.

The hull separating had crossed my mind, but I'm trying to be optimistic. The boat is fairly new to me, but I did not notice the problem until last season after it was painted.

I'm headed out to the shop now to pull the rub rail off and take a closer look. Will it be easy to spot if the hull is indeed separating? How would I repair this?

Thanks

Sounds like its time to pull the rub rail.

There are no visable signs of any cracks or gaps between the upper and lower halfs of my hull. The paint that was sprayed on before last season is not cracked at the seam either. I'm going to check it out better later when I have more light, but I think my hull is fine. Water must be coming in the hundreds of screw holes holding the rail on. Guess I need to order a few tubes of 4200.

IMO 4200 is overkill. It's very expensive too.

yes 4200 is over kill, 5200 would be a bare to strip off

but then again its the rub rail, and you want a good sealer on it

You can run clear marine grade silicone under the rub rail out of site. If you do a clean job you wont even notice. Chances are the water is coming from the bottom of the rub rail and not through the screws or rivets.

Hey Jon, this Ken if they repainted boat they probably just put the screws back in with out caulking. If you want to stop it pull screws caulk and like BMG said caulk under rub rail and you should be good to go.

There is no caulking under the rub rail. The seam between the upper and lower half looks fine. I will problobly run a bead of silicone there anyway though.

I have a similar issue with water leaking at the rub rail, but only at wakesurf speeds. Two thought's came to me on the problem/solution.
1. The rubrail is leaking, and will need to be re-caulked (gonna do this in the spring)
2. water is coming in the drain for my bilge pump. (this drain is underwater when we are wakesurfing. I do have a inline valve for this drain, but I am afraid that the pressure of the water is causing it to fail. I intend to move this drain to another location in the hull in the spring)

I'm hoping that these fixes 2 fixes will resolve the issue. Everything else has been checked and confirmed good.

I stopped by Gander Mountain today. The only thing they had was clear 3M silicone in a 3oz tube for $10. Surly this stuff isn't that high.

Silicone is basically silicone. The differences are slight. You should be able to get a tube big enough to do the whole boat for about $6 and use a caulking gun. You can use the bathroom silicone and be fine.