Boat Sank at Dock

[bweaver1]

Last Weekend went out to fish and found my boat sunk at the dock. Its a Crestliner Fishhawk 1750 Tiller. Never had an issue before. Put it in the water Friday afternoon and had no issues all day Friday or Saturday. Sunday morning it was sunk. Was able to have a friend step in the front of the boat thus raising the stern out of the water, I was then able to make my way over to the power switch turn it on and the bilge pump. After enough water was pumped out we used 5 gallon pails till it was below the floor then the bilge did the rest. Started just fine as the outboard was not under water. Radio died. We fished all day long and did not have water in it all afternoon. Used the livewells and bait well.
I am thinking waves came over stern during a storm and down the hole where where the fuel and electrical lines run to the motor.
Like I said I fished all day after bailing it out. So far just looks like the CD player radio is fried, everything else working fine.
Any suggestions on anything I need to do other than letting it dry out and replacing the Radio. Have yet to test the battery charger for the trolling motor. will do that this morning.

[fishboat]

Install/run an auto bilge pump with a float switch or sensor that's wired directly to a battery (probably the trolling batts as they have more power and taking a chance on depleting your starting batt may not be a good idea). Wired directly means any master power off switch leaves the connection to the pump hot. If you arrive at your boat and the trolling batts are dead..you know the pump may have been doing some work overnight. Of course the pump is only good when it has juice, but it may delay sinking long enough for you to notice something is amiss.

Was there an on-shore wind while you were away? If not, then you need to look elsewhere for the root of the problem. Is there a pie-plate access port in the splashwell? If so, is it a water-tight plate(o-ring seal around the removable plate and flange set in with bedding compound) or is it a screw-in type with a flange sealed by a foam ring(??). I just replaced the latter variety myself.

[Planocat]

x2 on the auto bilge pump.

2 yrs ago we had 9" of rain in 18 hrs while in Canada. Knew my boat would be fine as I had checked the auto pump when I put it in the water. Well, it never came on and the only thing that kept me from finding my boat on the bottom was that I had left the motor trimmed in and the boat was sitting on the skeg. My Ranger had 13" of water above the floorline! So much for the "dry" storage compartments. What a mess.

If the water is shallow enough where you dock it, you might want to leave the motor trimmed in until you're sure that your newly installed auto bilge pump (1000 gph preferred) works.

If the radio was the only casualty, you are very fortunate.

[CSH Kucinski]

I had trouble with water coming in my boat once and the cause was a missing rivet. Boat was only two years old at the time, couldn't believe that a small hole like that let so much water in over a short period of time. Didn't have an auto bildge pump either, I do now.

[fishboat]

...and buy a good pump & float switch...don't mess around with cheap stuff as you'll be wasting time and money, at a minimum.

Having an auto-bilge installed is also a handy early warning if you're out fishing and it kicks in...and there's 'no reason' it should kick in. You can start checking why it turned on before things get too serious.

One nice add-on to an auto bilge that is often used in slipped boats is an hour meter(minute meter?) wired in-line. If you monitor the hour meter you can tell if the auto-bilge has been running while you were away.

[3M TA3]

Never experienced anything like this. I will say though that my bilge pump has an auto feature and it is hooked directly to the battery. Even if all power is removed from accessories and such bilge still works. Might look into one of those types. especially if you leave it in the water unattended..

also had missing rivet one year that sank our boat at the dock. i would check to make sure you have no missing or very loose rivets

[REW]

BW,
1. Pay attention to your wind and weather forecasts.
2. If you are docked in an exposed area, and have a forecast for a big wind and storm, pull the boat from the water and put it on the trailer. Better to load and unload your boat, rather than have it on the bottom of the lake.
3. If the boat is reasonably protected, but if there is expected to be an on docking area wind, tie the boat up so that the BOW will be facing the open water, rather than the stern. Generally, the only thing that you might have do do, depending on the docking water depth is to lift the motor to keep the skeg from hitting the bottom.

====================================
Your post is exactly the reason why I never store anything in the boat, overnight.
My buddy and I were out for a day of fishing and had a nice day. It was my normal practice to always take my tackle and rods out of the boat overnight. But since we were going out again at 5 am, I made the decision to "one time" leave the rods and tackle in the boat.
The next morning, I go to the dock at 4:30 am to prep the boat and find it sunk at the dock. Of course everything is floating, and all of my tackle and rods are underwater.

So, I retrieve everything, go wake up my buddy and go to work. The area in front of the dock is open and has a gentle slope so a 4 wheel drive truck is used to back his trailer down the slope into the water in front of his boat. We begin to winch the boat up onto the trailer far enough to lift the bow of the boat. Then, we borrowed a sump pump from the resort to pump the water out of the boat. As the boat got lighter we winched the boat further onto the trailer. Finally, the boats transom was above the waterline, so we could empty the boat with the sump pump.

After we pulled the trailer up on the parking lot, we found that while fishing, a livewell fitting had broken off of the livewell pump - leaving an open path for water to flood and sink the boat. So, a quick trip to town to purchase a new livewell pump, remove and install the pump, take all of the tackle out of the tackle box and dry everything out, strip the reels and dry and re lube the reels and reassemble everything, put the boat back in the water and go fishing. So much for our 5 am start. But we had a nice afternoon of fishing with no further problem.

As I have said before, "stuff happens" . Use your judgement to take care of things when "stuff happens" and to minimize your down time when the unforeseen happens.

REW

[Hot Runr Guy]

here's a tip I got from my Lund dealer. You can easily add a float switch like shown below to your existing pump, using a Scotchlock or similar connector to "T" into the switch-side of your pump. 1 lead of the float switch gets attached to the pump, the other lead from the switch goes directly to your battery positive, with a fuse inline. This way, even if you turn off the master power switch, the pump still runs if the float tells it to. No need to replace the pump, or even add the 3-way auto/off/on switch.

HRG

[REW]

Great idea.
REW