woodrat
Ensign
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2004
- Messages
- 949
I have a 16' 1989 Valco bayrunner that I have had for a year and a half. Despite its clipper bow, it does bang some when running in short chop, but after all, I bought a solid welded hull instead of a riveted one so as not to have worries like that. Well, last week my brother and i are out i nthe ocean salmon fishing and noticing htat the bilge needs pumped alot, but it is pretty sloppy water and we chalk it up to that. The next day though, we stay in the river where it is calmer and we still have too much water in the bilge! even with the pump running. So I take a closer look at the pump and realize that it is no longer pumping, so I pull out the spare bilge pump (yes, I was actually carrying a spare! And I will never go out again without a spare pump!) and hook it up and the boat pumps dry finally. But two hours later, its getting pretty full again and now we are starting to worry that something else is amiss. <br /><br />When we pull it out at the ramp, I walk around it and sure enough, there is about a 30" long crack on one side just above the chine, and the beginnings of one on the other side! Aaaggh! My boat! So now I am on the beach, until I can pull all the floorboards (and console..ugh!) and take it to a welder and hope it can be fixed. There used to be a big heavy roof structure attached to the console and I took it of when I got the boat. I am hoping that that roof thing is what caused the problem by loosening the floor beams and it's not just a weak boat design that will always have these kinds of issues. <br /><br />has anyone else experienced this? What did you do? Can it be reinforced?