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RyanMN
04-12-2000, 08:58 PM
I am reminded of a day last summer when I took my Crestliner 1600 out for 4 hours. I quickly motored to my destination and set the Bow Mount Auto Pilot in and proceeded to fish for 4 hours. When time came to head for shore I pulled in the trolling motor, fired up the Mariner, and found that I could hardly accelerate, when all at once the bow of my boat headed for the sky and my feet were submerged in the water that ran out from beneath the floor and to the back of the boat. I quickly determined I had a leak, a pretty big one. I had forgotten to put the plug in.
Luckily the boat is stuffed with closed cell foam beneath the floor to keep it afloat in cases of such absent mindedness. I had no clue what was happening beneath my feet, and I'm sure that after 4 hours the maximum amount of water that could get in was in. The bilge and getting up on plane emptied it out in a hurry.
I learned a valuable lesson that day, that even without the plug in the boat I'll still stay afloat.


Don't take it easy, take it fishing.
Ryan

Josh
04-12-2000, 09:53 PM
Good story! Reminds me of last summer when I dumped our boat into the lake so I could do some work on the trailer. My mom informed me a couple of hours later that it was sinking. I got there in a nick of time, since the water was almost over the gunwale. Not much foam in an old Starcraft :(

Jack
04-13-2000, 08:21 AM
Of course I have never forgotten to install my drain plug, install my depth finders, take my lake maps or anything like that. However just in case I have fixed up an easy to use check list for launching and pull outs.

On a 3X5 inch index card I have put on one side items to check when launching and the other side has things to check at pull out. I keep the card behind the sun visor in my truck.

The launch side has such items as: drain plug installed, raise 9.9HP motor, depth finders, lake maps, disconnect trailer lights, etc. The pull out side has: raise 150HP motor, turn off main power, hook up trailer lights, tie downs, etc.

Most things are forgotten early in the season. This works, is easy and takes about four seconds to check.

Keep your line wet!