Never hurts to perform a safety check.

Huntindave McCann

Huntindave McCann

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Sometimes we can get lazy and lax when it comes to equipment which is rarely pressed into service. That is one reason I am faithful about using my parking brake every time I launch the boat. I figure with regular usage, the mechanism will be in good condition or at least give me some warning that it needs attention.

This brings me to this morning. Launched the boat to do a little fishing for pre-spawn Walleyes. Motored up river a ways, stopped and proceeded to slowing drift back down stream using my trolling motor to control my movement and position in the channel.

After getting snagged and retying, I was once again bouncing my jig along the river bottom when I noticed water oozing above the floor boards.

Remember back in the day when the school fire alarm would ring? Your teacher would announce; "This is a drill, step away from your desks, line up single file and we will march out side to the S.E. corner of the parking lot".

Well, this was not a drill, water was actually lapping at my soles. Seeing as it had taken 20 to 30 minutes to get to this point, I saw no reason to panic, but I did think it prudent to investigate. Taking off my coat, rolling up my sleeve and reaching over the transom, revealed the source of water intrusion into the interior of the hull. [whistle]

I like to think of today as an "unscheduled, unannounced safety drill" which BTW was calmly executed and passed with flying colors. I am happy to report the bilge pump got rid of the offending water in under 3 minutes.

PS. No fish were harmed, before, during, or after, the unscheduled safety drill.
 
I don't know of a single boat owner that has not had a similar experience at least once in their boating career!.
 
I remember that water sloshing at feet well. Many, many years ago headed up river one morning at odark30 with young son ,decoys and dog in little AA Blackjack I had back then. Everything went well till I stopped and starting sitting decoys and blind. Boat had filled in w/water under floor after coming to idle and was sloshing out from front drain tube as weight shifted in boat. Needless to say one cold arm latter I got the screw in drain plug screwed in from outside boat. Did have a bailer stuck forward under deck and shifting weight to rear got a good bit out. At least enough so it wasn,t sloshing over floor. Needless to say the birds all flew while I was accomplishing all these manuvers. Haven,t left a drain plug out since.
 
It took 20 minutes for the water to reach the floorboards? Wow, how big is your boat? I ask because on each of the occasions in which I forgot to put a drain plug in, the water was visible above the floorboards when I returned to the boat from parking my car! It's been a long time since I did that. Maybe it's just as well that my old duck boats don't even have drain plugs. One less thing to forget.
 
I have the garboard plug attached with decoy anchor line to a ring on the hull. Plus I always have a spare in the floating box I keep the flare gun in.


Joe
 
Gotta love a good bilge pump. I did that once or twice....there was another jon boat though that the rivets would pop out on occasion while out fishing. They were fairly easily fixed by stuffing rubber worms in the holes but it got aggravating enough that the boat got a total re-rivet job.

Nice to hear you didn't have to swim back to the boat ramp.
 
Gordon Bartlett said:
It took 20 minutes for the water to reach the floorboards? Wow, how big is your boat?
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Yes that is accurate. I was out in my BBIII when this occurred. I also have a 16ft. Crestliner Fish Hawk tiller boat. One can leave the plug out on that boat and one might never even notice. The water will never reach the floor and the boat will still get up on plane. It is actually a comforting feeling knowing that particular hull is so well designed.
 
Isn't the Crestliner an aluminum boat? What keeps the water from continuing to come in? Is there just that much flotation foam under the floorboards or does it actually have a sealed, self bailing cockpit? In any case, that's a really good feature. I've backed my 16' aluminum into big oncoming waves more than once and floated the gas tanks. Self-bailing would be nice.
 
Gordon Bartlett said:
Isn't the Crestliner an aluminum boat? What keeps the water from continuing to come in? Is there just that much flotation foam under the floorboards or does it actually have a sealed, self bailing cockpit? In any case, that's a really good feature. I've backed my 16' aluminum into big oncoming waves more than once and floated the gas tanks. Self-bailing would be nice.
Click to expand...

Yes the Crestliner is an aluminum hull. Just the floatation foam displacing the water instead of the hull displacing the water. First time it happened with this boat I was on a no-wake lake. Putted around the lake all morning catching fish with the plug out. It wasn't until loading the boat onto the trailer and pulling up the ramp a ways, that I discovered my oversight.
 
MN has a law on the books that require the plug to be removed anytime the boat is trailered. I have once forgotten to put the plug in and another time the plug came out while out hunting. It now gets left in and snugged tight until the end of the season when the boat is cleaned. I'll risk the fine should I get stopped.

Mark
 
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