I've had a few issues with my boat. On my last fishing trip to the Northern Territory last year, I hit a rock in the middle of nowhere! One minute I was in 20' of water then "bang" I was in <2' of water, and by the time the boat came to a halt I was back in 20' of water. One of the locals said, "Yeah, there are a few unmarked pinnacles out there"!
I was on the plane at the time but fortunately only doing 16 kts, not my more usual 26 kts.
The hit destroyed the skeg guard on the motor and took a piece out of the skeg. I later discovered that it also bent the propeller shaft slightly and bent the S/S propeller.
After Xmas I put the boat in for its annual service on the motor and decided to fully repair the damage - so new prop shaft, skeg repair, new skeg guard, prop repair and balance in addition to the normal service on the motor.
I took the lower unit (gear box and prop) to a repair shop that I last used many years ago. Imagine my surprise when it was the same shop, in the same place, with the same bloke behind the counter. I said to him,
"I am an old customer - I was last here about 40 years ago"! These guys are craftsmen and repaired the damage good as new so you would not even know that it had happened. Then my marine dealership installed a new prop shaft and checked the gear box for any other damage. It came through with a clean slate!
Today I took the boat out for a water test - and maybe catch a barra or two. A couple of miles into a run up the beautiful Hinchinbrook Channel I noticed water slopping around on the floor of the cockpit. At first I thought it was just ice melt from one of my coolers but rather than drain into the bilge and disappear, it just got progressively worse. I stopped to investigate but couldn't find the source of the water, and confirmed that it was salt water not fresh ice water. What the @#$% !
About then one of my auto-bilge pumps kicked in a pumped large amounts of water out of the bilge.
I turned on the manual bilge pump and headed back to the boat ramp, pondering the possibility of a split hull! How can that be? There are 16 layers of 12 oz biax cloth across all the joins in the hull! Has the trailer somehow punched a hole in the bottom? I've heard of that happening with an ill-fitting trailer, but my expensive custom built trailer? No way!
Back to the boat ramp, pulled the boat out onto the trailer, climbed underneath looking for a split or hole in the hull - nothing!!!!
Hmmmmm????????
So I figured I would go back home and fill the hull with water and see where it leaked. Packed the boat up, tied it down and headed for home thinking,
"How can I get this thing repaired in the 6 weeks before we are due to go barra fishing in the Northern Territory again? If not, its gonna be crowded with four of us in my little 14" barra boat".
Driving along I decided to ring (hands free) a fishing buddy and tell him the bad news. As I dialed the number the cogs in my head clicked over, and the problem was solved !!!!!! What a relief !!!!! My hull is NOT split or holed !!!!
I have had a deck wash system sitting in the cupboard in my office for the last three years. A few weeks ago I decided to fit it to the boat. I got started - but not finished. What happens when you have a 3/4 pipe running from a water inlet under the hull to a from compartment where the deck-wash pump is to be housed - and its open at both ends? On the plane, water is forced into the inlet, along the pipe (although its located up under the gunwale) and out into the front compartment, where it then flows into the compartment drain holes and onto the floor of the cockpit, into the cockpit drains and down into the bilge.
It would have been smart to have a sea cock on that pipe! Oh, hang on a minute, I have one of those!
The moral of this story is,
"If you are unexpectedly taking water - first step = close your sea-cocks"!
So here I am feeling greatly relieved - and a little stupid!