Sad to report that the water tank on Siempre Sabado may have finally succumbed to the vagaries of age and sprung a leak. That's the only source I can think of to account for the water in the bilge (10 gallons or so every couple of days), although, if the bilge doesn't quit filling pretty soon, I may have to rethink this as the water tank only holds 79 gallons. I tasted the water (YECH!) and it's slightly salty as one might expect since there has certainly been salt water in the bilge at one time or another. It also tasted oily due to the leaky fuel filter that I've since removed. Pretty sure this is dirty fresh water I'm dealing with. I've checked all the thru-hulls and the dripless seal: no leaks.
So, I know a lot of W28ers have been faced with the same problem. How did you solve it? Were you able to remove the tank? Whole or in pieces? What did you replace it with? If you left the tank in place and just put a new tank somewhere, where did you put it? What kind? Bladder? Rigid plastic? SS?
For those of you who don't know, the W28 water tanks are pretty big. Near as I can see, they are fastened into the empty hull and then the fiberglass liner which forms most of the interior was dropped in on top of the water tank. Then, the portion of the tank which was still visible was covered with a plywood deck that was glassed to the liner. The whole shootin' match is located inconveniently under the settee. Removal requires major liner-cutting surgery. Why not just cut an access hole and put a bladder tank inside the old aluminum one? Because the aluminum tank is subdivided into 6 compartments by an internal baffle system.
I'm hoping someone has overcome this problem and help me get some sleep.
-Steve
6/10/2016: since Siempre Sabado is now for sale, I find some of these earlier posts coming back to haunt me. So, to clear things up, we found that the water tank was just fine. The leak was from a hidden hole in one of the engine's cooling water hoses, which has been fixed. Please see my blog entries where the investigation and fix is discussed: