Remove Water from Board

[PonoBill]

Pull off the packing tape, open the wound a little, flip it over, put it in the sun and see if it drips. You're three pounds up, that's three pints of water--not a small amount. My goto repair for cracks and small wounds is aluminum tape. Makes the purist gag, but it's absolutely waterproof, fairly tough, and sticks on so well you need to razor it off. Weighs next to nothing. My poor old hollow SIC 17' V1 has yards of it on it with minimal weight gain. If I repaired all the cracks and dings it would gain ten pounds or more.  A week ago I stabbed Mr. Fugly with a paddle on the top deck. it was bubbling as I paddled in, I duct taped (all I had) some paper towel over the hole and went back out to play. Redid the duct tape and paper towel for the ride home with the board upside down in the Maui sun. Got a little water out, replace the duct tape with aluminum tape and burnished it in place--two layers. I have no plans to do "permanent" surgery, Mr. Fugly is resting comfortably.

[blackeye]

How about injecting a liquid like pure ethanol or methanol, let it saturate the interstitial spaces and mix with the trapped water? It would "thin" the water and promote evaporation with whatever little air could be sent through the board. Then suck/push it out as per the methods you are doing now. Any remaining alcohol/water mixture would be slightly lighter than the remaining water.

Bill's mention of salt deposits is a concern too. Maybe, before the alcohol treatment, inject fresh water, drain, inject alcohol, drain.

Beasho, sounds like experiment time.

[PonoBill]

When I get a big ding in salt water that I need to vacuum I routinely run distilled water through the affected area, feeding it in through the ding and taking it out through whatever I'm using as the drain. I've done it four or five times and it doesn't seem to increase the drying time to any degree, I've never kept careful enough records to tell if it really helps with the ultimate weight.

[Beasho]

I was heating up the external skin of the board with a heat gun and looking for disparate heating patterns.

Yes - Careful not to overheat and cook the styrofoam (done that before). 

Still nothing obvious.  Stopped short of cutting the skin off but that may be next.

When I suck on the nose I can still pull some water out.  The hose on the vacuum side of the pump is constantly covered with water vaper.  Still some coming out but VERY slow.

[Bean]

If you are trying to find areas of water concentration, check to see if the balance point has shifted front to back, side to side.  I don’t think this would work in your case because as you probably already know, over time the EPS will share the water pretty equally and the board will naturally regain its balance.

I would probably scrape back the traction pad and cut out a substantial section of the deck and let air dry.  Maybe even delete the handle, if there is one.