Carver / Trojan 1993 37 Express windshield leakage
by Dave
We have a 1993 Carver / Trojan 37-foot Express cruiser. Either it has the worst windshield system ever designed, or something has happened so that it is not functioning as designed. We have owned the boat for four years. One of the first things we noticed was that the deck carpeting got soaked every time it rained. We replaced the entire canvas cover, but that only helped the very aft portion of the deck. After some investigation, I found that water apparently comes in right through the base of the windshield at the front and sides of the cockpit area. I mean it really runs in, not just trickles. On the exterior side of the windshield at its base, there is a channel that runs, as I recall, from side to side along the whole windsield. There is some kind of a rubber gasket or weather strip inserted in this channel. I do not understand the purpose of this channel, and I have never seen a similar arrangement on any other boat, but this seems to be where the water is entering. I was told that the previous owner replaced all of that rubber shortly before I bought the boat. The gasket has gaps at the ends where there are metal frame cross-pieces through the channel. It also does not seem to fit very tightly in the channel in general. There has to be a better way of sealing this. I am wondering if whoever replaced that rubber botched the job or used the wrong seal, or if it is just an extremely poor engineering job. I am really looking for advice on how to stop this leakage. I have not received any help from the local marinas and dealers, so I am hoping there may be some other Carver / Trojan owners or Carver / Trojan tech advisers that may be familiar with this windshield, and know how to solve this. |
