water in boat

[justin99]

my 99 lund tyee is a BONE DRY boat no leaks at all not a drop! but recently i forgot to put the cover back on once returning from fishing and it rained that night--so I put a block of wood under the trailer jack to help the water drain out..it continued to drip for a few days so I lifted it even higher..now this was monday jun 18 when the boat was rained inside..we have had severy 90 degree days and what not, ive opened all hatches and i still have water slowly dripping out of the back..where the heck is this water being held!!! any ideas?????

[4JawChuck]

Stick a piece of rope or knotted rag in the drain hole, far enough inside that it reaches the puddle...usually takes a day or two for the wick to get all the water out.

Works really well.

[1860Angler]

It takes awhile for the water to drain out of the seats and get through the carpet and plywood down into the bilge. After fishing in the rain for a weekend I have had it take a couple of weeks before my seats, carpet and bilge were dry and the water stopped dripping out of the plug hole. I have had water just dripping out when I put the boat in the garage and it ended up overfilling a 5 gallon bucket with water!

[T Mac]

Did it drip from the git-go ...or pour out (as it should) fast at first and then just drip forever...?
-Once the bulk of the watrt drains out...it can take for ever for the last little here and there to makes it's way out.

If your drain hole is not partially obstructed and it poured out normally at first...by now, there's very little in there.

One last thought... from a rotten experience I once had:
I had people chewing sunflower seeds in my boat in the past.... man those hulls clogged up every passageway in the bilge.

[justin99]

yup it drains as it should fast at first then slow, its just odd to me i dont have the bow cushions in or anything its just the carpet and a couple pedestal seats, plus i left it uncovered with all hatches open in 90 degree heat for a few days so it had to be dry aside from under the floor...but if you guys have had similar experiences ill take it for what it is and thats just how it goes haha.

[T Mac]

Originally Posted by justin99

yup it drains as it should fast at first then slow, its just odd to me i dont have the bow cushions in or anything its just the carpet and a couple pedestal seats, plus i left it uncovered with all hatches open in 90 degree heat for a few days so it had to be dry aside from under the floor...but if you guys have had similar experiences ill take it for what it is and thats just how it goes haha.

... Look at it this way-- having little water in the bilge is a good thing
If it all leaked out... then you'd have a problem... LOLOL

[REW]

Justin,
The answer is fans.
Lots of fans.
Any time that you have had rain, waves or other moisture causing elements in your boat, use fans.

When you get the boat home - elevate the bow of the trailer at least a foot - to two feet.

Then, open every single hatch cover, bilge, livewell, cabinet cover in the boat.

Either Use multiple fans, or move the fans from opening to opening for at least 24-48 hours at each opening, running the fan's on high speed.

------------
Open the best access to your bilge, and check out the contents of the bilge. You should be able to see the drain openings from some point above board. Insure that all of the bilge openings are clear and that you do not have any debris in the bilge - like minnows, trash, gunk, or junk. If so, get your rags, brooms, vacuums etc. and completely clean the bilge of your boat. In many cases, the flexible hose of a shop vacuum work very very well to really get everything up out of the bilge.

After 10 days of having fans blow into every opening in the boat, and insuring that your bilge is 100% clean and tidy, you should have a dry boat.

By the way, on many aluminum boats, there is a drain channel in the center bottom of the hulls ribs. If the boat has not been subjected to a drain issue before, it may be that the drain channels in the center bottom of the aluminum ribs are partially or fully clogged with manufacturing debris.

One thing that you can do to check this is to use an air compressor with 150 psi of air pressure and a long blow gun with a 20 foot pipe on the end of the blow gun, so that you can slip it into a bow compartment, and use the blow gun to go all of the way from the bow of the boat to the stern of the boat. Use the blow gun to blow out any debris that it might encounter on the way.

From the sounds of your particular issue, I am thinking that you have drain slots in your boat that are partially or fully clogged from the times of never having any drain needs in the past.

The other thing that you can do that would be very helpful would be to enlist the aid of your friendly, well equipped plumber who has a video camera on a 100 foot snake that he uses for checking the condition of drains in your home. Have him run his video camera snake from the bow of the boat to the stern of the boat, checking for any obstruction - just as if he were checking for an obstruction in your home drain.

As T Mac has suggested, even a boat with a hundred gallons of water in it should be completely drained out within a few hours, once it is on the trailer with the bow of the trailer elevated.

By the way, some trailer jacks do not have enough extension to be able to really elevate the bow of the boat.

Put a level on the gunnel of the boat - from to back and fully elevate the bow of the boat. How many bubbles of elevation change do you have on your level? If necessary, you might need to put the boat on a very steep driveway, to get enough elevation to really get some good slope on the hull of your boat for very effective draining.

Good luck
REW

[4JawChuck]

My 1998 Lund ProSport has the same hull, part of the problem is the bilge drain hole is offset slight to the port side so there is always a puddle in the center that won't drain no matter how high you jack the bow.