For me the answer is yes. It's cheap insurance for less than $100. Here's two situations I have been in-
1) Fishing in my 16' tri-hull/outboard when the wind kicks up, 2 miles from the ramp so I head in. Lake is white-capping badly. A couple fellows in a flat bottom flag me down just over a mile from the dock. They lost power and boat is full of water. Their boat goes down while I am trying to get them on mine. Water has kicked up to the point that in trying to hold station, I'm spearing every other wave and taking 5+ gallons of water per wave. Whole thing took 15 minutes and my 600ish gph bilge on the whole time. Head back to the dock barely making headway. After getting to the dock and getting the boat on the trailer, I'm still pumping water out. I put in a second pump with a separate discharge in after that.
2) 19' deep v bowrider with a self bailing bow that we just bought, not very familiar with it yet, have a couple folks up front as we idle back to skier. It was a nice smooth river until a houseboat comes down the narrow river at full tilt. As I idle the boat into his wake, I mis-time one and get a wall of water over the bow. Enough water made it past the bow pan that when I lifted the engine cover to check things out. Water is up to the oil pan. It was a bad time for the existing pump to die, but it did. Limped back to the ramp a couple miles away. Boat had two new pumps (separate outlets) the next trip out as well as a float switch on the biggest one.
Just sold the bowrider and picked up a 22' aluminum deck boat. It has a single pump. Guess what is going in it over the winter? I saw a boat just like this one take a towboat wake over the bow and end up with 3" of water in the floor. Stuff happens.
1) Fishing in my 16' tri-hull/outboard when the wind kicks up, 2 miles from the ramp so I head in. Lake is white-capping badly. A couple fellows in a flat bottom flag me down just over a mile from the dock. They lost power and boat is full of water. Their boat goes down while I am trying to get them on mine. Water has kicked up to the point that in trying to hold station, I'm spearing every other wave and taking 5+ gallons of water per wave. Whole thing took 15 minutes and my 600ish gph bilge on the whole time. Head back to the dock barely making headway. After getting to the dock and getting the boat on the trailer, I'm still pumping water out. I put in a second pump with a separate discharge in after that.
2) 19' deep v bowrider with a self bailing bow that we just bought, not very familiar with it yet, have a couple folks up front as we idle back to skier. It was a nice smooth river until a houseboat comes down the narrow river at full tilt. As I idle the boat into his wake, I mis-time one and get a wall of water over the bow. Enough water made it past the bow pan that when I lifted the engine cover to check things out. Water is up to the oil pan. It was a bad time for the existing pump to die, but it did. Limped back to the ramp a couple miles away. Boat had two new pumps (separate outlets) the next trip out as well as a float switch on the biggest one.
Just sold the bowrider and picked up a 22' aluminum deck boat. It has a single pump. Guess what is going in it over the winter? I saw a boat just like this one take a towboat wake over the bow and end up with 3" of water in the floor. Stuff happens.
