My worst day fishing~where is that water coming from? :eek:

[keninaz]

Years ago my wife and I took our 19' I/O deep "V" out and put it in the salt water to go sturgeon fishing. It was about a 20 minute run from where I launched.
I got the boat up to speed at around 30-35 and headed out. We encountered some slapping and such with some rollers with the tides and such but heard nothing abnormal.
I slowed the boat in my favorite spot and cut the motor. I opened the windshield and threw the anchor over with the gallon jug to mark it should I get a big one on like normal.
About that time my wife said~ Where is all this water coming from?
I opened the engine bay and looked to see if the plug was in place. Forgot that before a time or two! To my surprise it was in place.
This old boat did not have level floatation and we had some 4" of water above the floor. We had no idea where it was coming from.
I fired the motor, threw the anchor line overboard and hit the bilge pump switch and hit the gas. The water shifted back in the boat and I had my wife raise the cover on the motor to see where the water level was. It was up above the oil pan on the Volvo motor and nearly to the electrics.
I had my wife take the wheel while we headed to shore and I went back and pulled the drain plug thinking maybe suction would pull some of this water out.
It worked! slowly, very slowly we gained speed, the faster we went the faster the water came out of the hull. It took forever to get it out.
Once up on a plane with the drain plug out the water stayed out of the hull.
We made the trip back to the dock, made a pass by and told all to get out of the way as we were sinking if I stopped. I let my wife out at the dock with the keys to our truck and she had another guy put the trailer in position in the water while I pulled out to get that speed back up again and get the water out.
When the trailer was ready and at the right depth I drove the boat right onto the trailer and he secured the lines to it quickly and we pulled her up on the pavement.
What we found was a 3" wide gash at the rear underside of the hull that ran about 12" or so to the rear of the hull.
We don't know how it got there. Apparently one of the slaps we heard we hit something floating in the water that was partially submerged and it tore the hole in the hull.

I can tell you this much. I never went fishing again without a marine radio. In addition to the one wired to the battery I carried a handi talkie in a double zip locked bag with a spare set of batteries for it just in case we had to go into the water. The HT could be operated while in the bag and you could even change the batteries in the bag so this is a very good idea.
You never know when you might need it.

 

[R Socey]

Re: My worst day fishing~where is that water coming from?

I saw a guy at lake Conroe TX completely sink his truck , and
boat - the only thing you could see was bubbles. He jumped out of his truck in a hurry - thought he threw it into park, but it
only got as far as reverse - poor guy.
On Liberty reservoir md, a naked guy jumped off the bridge while
being pursued by the police. The cops yelled at some poor fisherman to get the guy, so he tried, the guy got into his boat
and started fighting him - a little flat bottom. It ended up on
the bottom in 90' of water.

 

[mommicked]

Re: My worst day fishing~where is that water coming from?

The guy in MD. needed a fishbat!!

 

[veritas honus]

Re: My worst day fishing~where is that water coming from?

Quick thinking, Ken. Good skills, too. So how did it play out from there? Tell us about the repairs. Did you do the work, or did you pay someone. Do you still have that boat?... Any pictures?

 

[keninaz]

Re: My worst day fishing~where is that water coming from?

I don't know about skills involved. I had learned the trick about pulling the plug to drain a boat from my father years before he ever had a bilge pump. It drains it pretty quickly when underway, suction I guess.
As stated, I got it back on the trailer and then took it home. I was researching how to do the fiberglass repairs myself (I have always liked to do my own work) when I ran into a guy that did it very cheap~under $100 if I remember right now.
No pix, this was early 70s. And that was about my second or third boat. I was not impressed by the performance of that small 4 cylinder Volvo I/O and I sold it~yes for a bigger boat!

 

[Home Cookin']

Re: My worst day fishing~where is that water coming from?

lucky you could get to the drain plug from inside. My old starcrafts, we always ran the water out, adn you could pull the rubber plug from the inside (OB motor).
This is also why you always have something on board you can bail with. I also carry hand pumps, b/c you can stick them down into the bilge, adn they work after your battery is flooded or when your pump fails! An extra pump on alligator clips is a good idea, too.

 

[keninaz]

Re: My worst day fishing~where is that water coming from?

I had a hand pump, but as fast as that water was coming in that old heavy boat with that very large hole in the bottom of the boat it would not have made a bit of difference. I was about 150 yards from shore and I was going to try to make it if I could. We could not believe just how fast that water was coming into the boat from that 3" x 12" gash in the bottom that we later found. We still have no idea when or what we hit.
When I saw the water was just below the distributor and I could control that with the power setting somewhat I thought about the drain plug idea and it worked so we continued with that 20 minute run back to the dock.
I don't think that old '61 hull had floatation in it. I know it had some foam of some type sandwiched between the floor and the outer hull but the boat really took on water fast as soon as I stopped moving.
Perhaps getting moving again was all it needed to drain, I don't know.
I did not really want to have to swim for it with the outgoing tide hitting some 6 knots and heading out into the San Pablo Bay.
Just lucky that time I guess.