First time boater experiences. My bilge fails on me. What are yours?

[hdradaza]

I am a first time boater with a rebuilt 18 footer tri hull.

My first trip out was the short crash course the engine dealer gave me and we travelled the boat from the shipyard to the boat house (about 1 hour) so that was not too daunting.

The second trip happened to be the first trip on my own. After reading EVERYTHING i could find about beginners boating in this forum and other guides online, I felt pretty confident. There is a popular tourist destination around our area in the philippines. It is a small island about 3 miles off the coast. We just reached the island and did not dock. We anchored and after some snorkeling we started up again to make a trip around the island. I then heard a load alarm. It turned out to be the oil reservoir not being able to make it's way up to the outboard. The alarm was the oil being low. We simply refilled the oil in the outboard manually and continued on with the day. At this point, I noticed a lot of water was coming out of my bilge pump. After about 15 minutes of run time, the bilge would be on for about 5 seconds. IS THIS NORMAL ?

So then came our second trip on our own. After making it across to the same island, I noticed we were taking a lot of water in. But I did notice a lot of splashes and water coming in as we were running (I think I still can't plane or don't know how) since everyone was drenched. I did try taking waves at a 45degree angle. we were really drenched when we were going against the waves at an angle.

ANyway, it turned out there was ALOT OF WATER inside (4 inches deep) because the BILGE PUMP had failed! So I had everyone bail the water out. At this point, I still wasn't sold on going back home since we wanted to continue our day of boating. But I went against everyone's wishes and made our way back home. We checked the batteries (2 of em) and the water was up to 3/4 of the top of the battery terminals. Really scary by then. We did make it back home safely where the mechanic had luckily been around to check on it. I now realize one thing I could have done is check the fuse of the bilge pump ( I did have spare on board )

Turned out the bilge pump had taken in some fiberglass debris (we just rebuilt the boat) and burned the pump (500 gallons / hour capacity).

I had suggestions to increase the capacity to 1,500 gallons / hour and install two of these. 1 would be automatic and the other would be a manual switch as a back up. I also thought about creating some sort of a filter (small screen mesh type?) so this would not happen again.

Any thoughts on these ?

I now realize things could have turned pretty ugly and maybe catastrophic if I continued on with the day without a bilge pump.

Not to be unfazed, I am looking forward on our third time out. Hopefully nothing serious. But on a brighter note, I am learning a lot with each eventuality. I am though expecting future experiences which I can learn from.

Can we hear from everyone else of your experiences and how you handled it so maybe us new boaters will know what to do and what to look for so we won't be guessing out in the open waters on what to do ???

 

[stevens]

Re: First time boater experiences. My bilge fails on me. What are yours?

Where's the water coming from? Under normal conditions, there should be NO water making its way into the bilge, and there should be no need for a bilge pump.

When going through the waves there may be some splashing into the boat, but what you describe seems like something else.

What do you mean "you can't plane"? If your engine is big enough, just push the throttle until the speed is high enough for the boat to pass over the hump....

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: First time boater experiences. My bilge fails on me. What are yours?

most common place for a leak in rough water is around the rub rail where the hull and top cap come together. water spashes up and comes thru the joint if not sealed.

i have two bilge pumps, one automatic, one manual. they are on separate batteries, switches, and thru hull fittings. this way they are completely separate.

 

[SS MAYFLOAT]

Re: First time boater experiences. My bilge fails on me. What are yours?

In the early 90's I had bought a 1967 Stingray V-20 with 120hp I/O. Big enuff for lake Erie fishing. We went to a couple of small local lakes and it behaved like a boat should. It ran great, no problems at all.

My buds and I picked a day the waves were minimal and made our way out to the islands by Put-in-Bay. I kept a watch on the guages and compass as we made our way to a great fishing spot. Once there, I looked the engine over and the bilge. Everything looked fine so we did our fishing.

We finished our catch and headed back to Port Clinton. By now you couldn't see land and using the compass was indeed an important item to have. I never had to use one before until now. I remembered the heading of the compass as we went out so I would know what one to take back.

Little did I know that being off several degrees really makes a difference when you travel a big distance. When we got about 5 miles out, I noticed that the oil pressure went to dang near zero. Pulled the doghouse and all the oil was in the bilge. Uh oh, so we shut off the engine and skimmed the oil off the top of the water in the bilge. Managed to get two quarts of oil to dump back into the engine. After all we only had about 5 miles to go. Got the oil pressure back and continued our way. We make it back to the shore to find out that I'm about 10 miles east from our port. Guess I should have been more carefull on that compass heading. After finding out that we were not on course, the oil pressure drops again. The bildge now looks like a big mess. I didn't want to use the bilge pump and dump the oil into the lake. Big, big fine for doing so.

I took the chance and trolled all the way along the shoreline to the port without oil pressure. It turns out that the rear oil seal failed. That was the beginning of learning the ins and outs of what marine mechs do. What really was a pain,,,,,,,,,,there wasn't an iboats website then. Getting the info to find parts and what to do wasn't easy then. Thankfully the lake was being nice that day.

 

[Maclin]

Re: First time boater experiences. My bilge fails on me. What are yours?

At this point, I noticed a lot of water was coming out of my bilge pump. After about 15 minutes of run time, the bilge would be on for about 5 seconds. IS THIS NORMAL ?

No! This is not normal. Something is wrong with your boat's hull, or you are not putting the plug in, or putting it in the wrong hole or the plug fitting is leaking bad. More pumping capacity is only like trying to put air back in a tire with a hole in it while driving down the road. You need to find out what is wrong and fix it. I would not let anyone on the boat with me until it is fixed. There is no way to have a good day ON the water when that much of it is IN the boat with you.

 

[Barnacle_Bill]

Re: First time boater experiences. My bilge fails on me. What are yours?

SS Mayfloat reminded me of an occasion when I was a young lad and had rented a boat and went out to Kelly's Island. The tiller handle broke off while out there. Have you ever tried to steer and run an outboard with the tiller laying in the bottom of the boat?

 

[Maclin]

Re: First time boater experiences. My bilge fails on me. What are yours?

I remember that pic being one of a boat that had had the hull "extended". If this is the same boat then there may be major issues with breaches in the hull or structural failures after it has been stressed in the water now.

 

[Ezrider_92356]

Re: First time boater experiences. My bilge fails on me. What are yours?

well the first time i took my 14ft aluminum out it had a 3.5 hp crysler ob on it, looked like a ww2 airplane engin and sounded like one too got up river a little way and then it dies on me, and wouldent start back up well i wasent paying atention as i was trying to restart it and ended up floating downstreem from the boat launch ended up getting towed in by a pontoon boat

 

[hdradaza]

Re: First time boater experiences. My bilge fails on me. What are yours?

maclin,

you bring up a very good point. Yes I was informed that it was extended before. I will have to check on that.

What is the best way to determine the leaking if any ? and where it is coming from ?

I thought maybe it is coming from the transom where there were small hole screws from the depth finder transducer which got moved around (and till now still does not give consistent readings !). But the volume of water was too much just for these small holes.

But I DO REMEMBER getting splashed with a lot of water, although the waves were not that big (2 feet); we were going against them.

 

[Solittle]

Re: First time boater experiences. My bilge fails on me. What are yours?

Get the boat out of the water and have a look see. You have a major leak somewhere. Getting a bilge pump with a large capacity is a good idea but it is not a substitute for a sound boat.