action craft 1820 self bailing question

[seapro_stevo]

on a 1999 action craft 1820 there are two self bailer holes in the floor on each side of the boat. one goes directly through the side of the boat and other goes down into the floor. why is there two? does the one in the floor drain into the bilge? do you normally plug the side holes when running the boat? is there normally flaps on side holes to prevent water from coming in?

 

[GatorMike]

Re: action craft 1820 self bailing question

Not sure why there would be 2 per side but I doubt the one that goes through the floor drains into the bilge. I would imagine it has an elbow below deck and drains out the side. As for a flap the type of scupper drain I just discribed has a ball in it about the size of a ping pong ball that acts as a check valve.

http://www.discountmarinesupplies.com/TH_Marine_Cockpit_Scupper_Drains.html

Should look something like this, if you use a flashlight to look down through the holes you should be able to see the check ball. Hope this helps.

 

[dingbat]

Re: action craft 1820 self bailing question

Why not two on each side? You can never have too many drains when you take one over the bow

I have 4 drains in my cockpit as well. Even with 4 drains I've had 2" of water completely covering the deck a couple of times. The fore cockpit drains dump straight overboard via a thru hull but the cockpit at that point is about 4" above the water line so it doesn't really need any back flow prevention. The only time I've ever experienced any water coming in the drain is when trolling in a heavy beam sea. Even then it's hardly enough to even get your feet wet.

My aft drains appear to go into the floor but they too dump directly overboard. The cockpit is only about 2" above the water line so they have little rubber flaps on the inside of the scupper assemblies. Again, I've never had enough water coming in to even think twice about it.