My boat is sinking

[Rayzor]

So I took my 16ft SS out the past 2 days trying to get the bugs worked out. Both times I was in the water maybe 2 hours tops. When I come up the ramp and pull the plug I am draining at a guess 10-15 gallons. I cannot find any damages on the hull that would leak. How do I tackle this issue because when I go fish I stay out up to 10 hours and thats alot of water.

 

[heyyou325]

Re: My boat is sinking

Easy cheap way is to buy a bilge pump. You can remove anything water would ruin, fill the boat with water, and you should be able to see a few drops coming from a leak. That's about a gallon every 10 minutes so should be visable. Do you get splash in the boat? If not, my guess would be a leaky rivet. The splash guard flexes a tiny bit and I get them there on my 16 ft crestliner. Don't use silicon to patch it.

 

[Rayzor]

Re: My boat is sinking

I filled the boat with water and found5 missing rivet heads. most still had the inner portion blocking the hole but still dripped. On one the entire rivet was missing and water was a steady stream out. So it looks like its pop rivet time.

 

[InMotion]

Re: My boat is sinking

Goop up the rivet with 5200 before inserting. Another option for missing rivet heads is jb weld. Mix it up and fill it. If you could get to the rivets from the inside you could in addition, gluvit and/or 5200... just as extra precaution. Glad you seam to have found the sources though!!!

 

[King James]

Re: My boat is sinking

Make sure to use closed head blind rivets as in time inner part of rivet will rust away

 

[heyyou325]

Re: My boat is sinking

The 2 above are right, you can also use stainless machine screws with nuts. Good idea to use gluvit, 5200, or at least some marine epoxy over both the screw head and nut. Nut on the inside.

 

[Rayzor]

Re: My boat is sinking

I blobbed some 5200 on the new rivets inside and out. That should do the trick. Maybe this winter I will use that gluvit stuf on the whole inside area. Thanks for the tips.