small amount of water in bilge

hello all! hoping to get a little help here. whenever i leave the dock my bilge is empty. after cruising around for a couple of hours i have noticed water in the bilge. i turn on the bilge pump and it pumps it out. i would say that several gallons accumulate in the bilge. i'm nervous about this and was wondering if this is normal. i'm at the point to where i am checking the bilge about every 20 min or so while we are cruising to make sure there is not alot of water in there. i have a 20 ft deck boat with 5.0 volvo i/o. any help would be greatly appreciated!

Re: small amount of water in bilge

Unless it's splash from wind and waves, remove whatever you need to expose bilge, get in there and dry it out completely, rag on the end of a stick whatever it takes, put boat into water and just tie off somewhere and observe bilge, use a mirror and flashlight if you have to, watch close around the transom shield, the plug and any other thru hull fittings. I found my leak that way, didn't take more than 5 mins. before I noticed a drip forming around the drain plug itself, it was enough to accumilate over an hours time. Now I use a bit of teflon tape, the plug threads must be worn out? but it stopped the leak, bilge now will remains bone dry.

Re: small amount of water in bilge

I recently bought a "new to me" boat and have had a similar problem. This is what I discovered on my boat. We have a 28? Bayliner that we take out for no less than two days at a time. On our second trip on the second day we started to fill up with water, probably had 100 gallons in the bilge (after the batteries died and the pumps shut off).

Check your deck drain hoses. One of my drains exites the hull below water line and the line had rotted out, thus letting in lots of water. I was able to make a quick repair on the lake to stop the leak, and when we returned home I began checking all the lines and found three lines that were rotten.

Not knowing exactly the design of you boat I would suggest looking to make sure all through hull drains are sealed and you have no rotten hoses.

I?m headed to the lake this weekend and will see how much water I take on.

I?m looking forward to see what others suggest to so I can see where else to look.

Re: small amount of water in bilge

thanks for the advice! will check on all of that this weekend!

Re: small amount of water in bilge

If all that fails, with boat on trailer fill the bilge with water (not high enough to touch the starter) and observe where it is coming from on the outside.

I had a bunk bolt come loose and gouge a hole in the bottom of my boat and it was not until we did the above did we find it.

Re: small amount of water in bilge

thanks! looks like i have several scenarios to check out. hopefully, it will not be anything major!