Leaky Starcraft....

[I Fish]

Well, it's a Sylvan, but it's exactly the same. It's a 1986 18' Rodmaster that I did a full restore on a few years ago. She's been flawless, until today. I used her a week ago, and she never leaked a drop. Today, a much different story. The wife and I went fishing, and everything seemed fine, until I went to change spots, and the wife starts yelling there is water in the back. Sure enough, we were full. It took a 750 GPH bilge pump about 30 minutes to get her empty.

We went back and trailered her, and I looked everything over, but couldn't see anything wrong. So, I decided maybe it was leaking through the livewell pump. I plugged the through hull fitting, and we relaunched. Unfortunately, that wasn't the fix. We went ahead and fished around the ramp, and I'd run the bilge every hour. If the pump actually pumps 750 GPH, I'm taking in around 150 gallons in an hour.

So, when I retrailered, I left quite a bit of water in her. I couldn't even get all the way on the trailer, lol. But, I didn't see any leakage. I crawled around under her looking for a missing rivet, crack, anything. I didn't see anything obvious.

I really don't understand. I'm afraid there's a crack or something I'm not seeing while on the trailer. We were on smooth water and didn't hit anything. So, does anybody have any ideas of something I might be overlooking?

 

[KevinHall]

Is it an I/O or an outboard? That sounds like bellows to me.

 

[I Fish]

No, it can't be that simple, lol. It's an outboard.

 

[Skypirate]

At 2.5 gal. A minute you would think it would be noticable where its breaching

 

[Watermann]

If you've checked to make sure all the through the hull fittings aren't broken or leaking then about all you can do is park her on some dry concrete and add water to the hull. Don't add too much only enough to where you see a wet drip underneath. You can also manipulate the water level by raising and lowering the trailer jack. If you go underneath please don't reply on a flimsy trailer jack, put blocks or a jack stand under the tongue.

I've seen plastic through the hull fittings break inside under the flange but it looks good because the sealer is still holding it on the hull. I would think it's something like that over a sudden hull breach for no apparent reason.

 

[I Fish]

Well, if things work out, I'm gonna put her on a sling hoist tomorrow. hopefully. That should make things a little easier to see. I'll report back what I find.

 

[Woodonglass]

Does she take on water while the boat is at rest or only while she's underway?

 

[dozerII]

I would try filling the live well to the top to see if one of the hoses has rubbed through or cracked, that was the case on the first Starcraft I owned.

 

[redneck joe]

Thats a lot of water. I'm voting cracked stem on thru hull.

 

[I Fish]

Well, the wind kept me from putting her on the sling, so, it wasn't until yesterday I got a look at the damage. I started to fill her with water, but it didn't take much to see where it was leaking. Unfortunately, the damage is hidden by the bottom bunk. So far, I've been able to block the front and lower the trailer jack just enough to see some of the damage. It appears I've hit something and dented the skin right at a rib. That caused 2 rivet heads to be knocked out of position. The edge of at least one of the rivets caught on the carpet of the bunk while loading, and broke it off. So, the next time I launched, I had at least one rivet missing, and possibly a couple more leaking.

Today begins the fun of getting her off the trailer.

I really hate to do this, but I don't think I'll have enough access to buck in new rivets without a tear down, so, I'm thinking about just using some sealing blind rivets to get me through the season. I'll hopefully know more later today.