Association Forum - Water in the Bilge!!!

Assn Members Area · Join

Home.

Association Forum

Ships Store

Cruising

Racing

Technical Tips

Photo Gallery - New

Boat Search - Updated

Manuals & Brochures

Swap Meet

Links

Officer Flag Line & Staff

Bylaws & Constitution

Members Area

Join the Association

Notice:
The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ.
The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.

Association Forum

Username:	Password:
Save Password
Forgot your Password?

All Forums

Catalina/Capri 25/250 Sailor's Forums

Catalina 25 Specific Forum

Water in the Bilge!!!

New Topic

Topic Locked

Printer Friendly

Author

Topic

Ben
Master Marine Consultant

Member Avatar

USA
1234 Posts

Initially Posted - 01/19/2004 : 08:09:00

Hi All,

My boat is in the "shop" having a wing keel installed, hopefully within the next month. My wife and I drove the two hours to the boat this past Saturday on our way to the Cleveland Boat Show to visit the boat and to retrieve the batteries. I was alarmed to see that there was a tremendous amount of water in the bilge. In fact, it even came over the floor in the head area. The boat is in indoor heated storage, but only within the past few weeks. This has me alarmed. Will standing water for that long in the boat damage anything? I had agreed to have the "shop" store the boat, but I thought it had been inside since November. Obviously I was wrong. I'm not sure how the water got into the boat. It must have been 3 or 4 weeks ago when Ohio got that tremendous amount of rain. It tends to leak in through the anchor locker.

Thanks,

Ben
Beneteau 361
Viking Kitty
Columbus, Ohio

Edited by - on

tinob
Master Marine Consultant

Members Avatar

USA
1883 Posts

Response Posted - 01/19/2004 : 08:57:03

Hi Ben,

Welcome to the sWING group. There is only one thing to be concerned about and that's the compression post. Everything else is glass down there. Of course mold and mildew may factor in if the water is allowed to remain...get it pumped dry and encourage proper air circulation. You'll love the conversion.

Val on the hard DAGNABIT

Edited by - on

dlucier
Master Marine Consultant

Members Avatar

Virgin Islands (United Kingdom)
7583 Posts

Response Posted - 01/19/2004 : 10:05:21

Yeah, like Val said, there isn't too much in the bilge to worry about so don't sweat it, since I doubt that this is the first time that your boat has had water in it, nor the last. You'll just have to find the leaks, one at a time, and fix them. Eventually you'll find and repair every leak, at which time the cycle will repeat itself and you'll be back to square one.

Here's a little bilge water story....

On a cold, frozen January day many years ago, my brother and I went off to look at what eventually became my first boat, a Venture 25. It had sat neglected for a number of years and in addition to the moss that had taken over it's north side, was a frozen lake inside the boat. The ice was about a foot thick and within the stem-to-stern solid block were things like the outboard, fuel tank, lines, and anything else that was stored below seat level.

At the end of our inspection, I turned to my older brother and said, "Whadda ya think?" and he responded, "Well, if the hull will hold this much water and not drain out, you know the hull has just got to float".

At which time I said, "Good point!" and bought the boat then and there.

Edited by - on

cch
Navigator

Members Avatar

202 Posts

Response Posted - 01/19/2004 : 10:38:13

Hi Ben,

I had similar problems during my conversion from swing to wing. My boat was in a boatyard just a few miles from work and home and, as I was doing some of the work on the conversion, I went to the boat nearly every day.

I won't tell you what I threatened to do to the workers if they continued to leave my boat open and allow it to rain into the boat. I finally locked the boat so they could not leave it open and finished any interior work myself. From then on the boat was bone dry.

I converted from swing to wing in order to keep a dry bilge. For the 2 years prior to the conversion our boat sat in the water often with water fairly deep in the bilge. I am sure this was not good for it, but once we got the boat out of the water and completely dried out, it is fine. I doubt the water which sat in your boat has done any damage.

We have only just been able to determine how our boat sails with the new keel. She has been back in the water for a few weeks but with the holidays, work and weather it has just been the last couple of weeks we have been able to get out. Yesterday was fantastic. Nearly 70 degrees about 15-18 knots of steady wind. We sailed downwind for a couple of miles then returned close hauled to check out her pointing ability. She does not point quite as well as with the swing, but have discovered that she handles better and more stable in stronger winds. So far we like how she sails in stronger winds but we don't know yet about light wind. She does seem to roll more.

Anyway, I can't tell you how much I am enjoying a dry bilge, not messing with the swing, and quieter sailing without the cable hum.

I feel you will really love your new boat.

Edited by - on

Ben
Master Marine Consultant

Members Avatar

USA
1234 Posts

Response Posted - 01/19/2004 : 12:24:59

Thanks Val, Don and Chris,

I feel a lot better. I called the guy who is doing the work, and he said he had his people pump out the boat yesterday, so I feel much better.

One exciting thing about seeing the boat Saturday was being able to see the keel for the first time. It was a happy, happy day!

Now, if only the guy would put it on. He said it would probably be the next warm spell we get. Crimony! That's called Spring! Oh well, he has me at his mercy. Here are some pictures of my beautiful keel.

Edited by - on

MikeM
1st Mate

Members Avatar

72 Posts

Response Posted - 01/19/2004 : 14:04:42

Others with the older fin keel with the steel bolts (not stainless) they will begin to rust with water in the bilge, especially if this is sea water.

Mike

Edited by - on

Raskal
Navigator

Members Avatar

USA
162 Posts

Response Posted - 01/20/2004 : 15:18:19

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Others with the older fin keel with the steel bolts (not stainless)...will begin to rust with water in the bilge, especially if this is sea water.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

There must be some kind of dividing line on years/hull numbers for that problem, because my 1984 fin keel has super-polished stainless steel washers and nuts mounted on similar bolts which remain spotless after a whole season of being encased in a frozen salt/fresh mixture. I couldn't even find replacements for these (some of the washers had been bent during manufacture) and so had to reinstall them when the better-fitting replacements began corroding.

Having a dry bilge would be a good time to consider painting the deepest part with some kind of tough epoxy; it will give some piece of mind against the possibility of blistering in the part of the boat that often gets long-term water exposure with no gelcoat barrier. While painting mine I saw overlapping layers of fiber that didn't always look like they had enough resin to prevent penetration between the layers.

Rich Kokoska

Edited by - on

Topic

New Topic

Topic Locked

Printer Friendly

Jump To:

Association Forum

Notice: The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ.
The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.