South End/Drain Plug

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svivian said:
This is not a drain plug story, though I may have done that myself once or twice, however still funny.

Me and another broke college kid went in on an old 80's bass boat so we could fish university bass tournaments. We were in the process of fixing up this old neglected boat and I got it running great. We took it out a few times and decided a few upgrades were in order. My buddy decided he would go and put in the new seats himself since I was going to be gone for a week.

The following couple weeks we took it out and each time we could not figure out why the bilge was filling up with water. Checked the drain plug, livewell lines, engine mounting bolts everything. We could not figure it out. Now keep in mind this was an 18' small thin fast bass boat.

Finally I crawled under the boat to look for damage. To my surprise i found 4 drill holes straight through the fiberglass on both sides. It finally dawned on me he drilled through the boat mounting the new seats. :ROFLMAO: 🤦‍♂️ .

I quickly and easily patched them and we were good from then on but I did have to give him grief over the hole ordeal.... pun intended
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I can think of a whole new category - the "I Drilled a Hole in the Bottom of the Boat Club!"

Ed Gerdemann
 
This makes me so anxious. Our boat has two plugs. One at the transom and one midship. I know one of these days we will forget one of them. My wife complains that I insist on starting the boat while it is still on the trailer submerged and check to see that there is no water in the bilge, but I am trying to stop a problem like this. One of our previous boats had a water line that rubbed in the engine compartment and worked a hole in the line after the water pump. I didn't realize what was wrong until we noticed that every time we stopped or when I pushed the engine hard, the bilge was activating. We reached under and found the hose that had a hole and wrapped it with tape until a new hose could be bought.
 
Dorado said:
I almost always pulled the plug, even before the AIS required it, just to be sure all the water is fully drained. I didn’t have an automatic bilge pump in my old crestliner. One day fishing out on Fremont Lake, which is a 10 minute drive from my house, I noticed the boat was acting sluggish and slow to come on plane. Never thought to turn on the bilge pump🤔. When I got off the lake, it was super hard to crank the boat on the trailer, and when I pulled the plug, water gushed out. I drained it with he bilge pump on and took forever to get all the water out. We had a wet fall that year, and Since I had left the plug in for the past couple months all the rain had pooled in my boat! Doh…
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Where exactly do you live? Many years ago we lived in about two miles from Boulder. We built a log home there and loved it. Got some great stories about trips to Fremont lake.
 
The screw hole pics reminded me of an unamed friend who wanted to show how handy he was so he secured some things to the roof inside the houseboat. Problem was he used 2 inch screws on a 11/2 thick roof!! 😂 a few air mattress fails and jabbed feet alerted him to the error of his ways!
 
These stories sure made good reading this morning. We are also members of the forgot to put the plug in club. My husband launched our old '87 18' Phantom fish and ski with his buddy at a lake in New Mexico and forgot to put the plug in. I noticed the panicked look on his face as I was headed up the ramp with the trailer and immediately turned around and retrieved the boat. Now we have cell phones to call each other instead of the frantic wave and whistle. Another leaking boat issue is the bellows. We have had to replace that once in the 2002 Chaparral. Every time we backed up water would leak into the bilge. Any day you get back to the dock in one piece is a good day!
 
Big_BobberII said:
These stories sure made good reading this morning. We are also members of the forgot to put the plug in club. My husband launched our old '87 18' Phantom fish and ski with his buddy at a lake in New Mexico and forgot to put the plug in. I noticed the panicked look on his face as I was headed up the ramp with the trailer and immediately turned around and retrieved the boat. Now we have cell phones to call each other instead of the frantic wave and whistle. Another leaking boat issue is the bellows. We have had to replace that once in the 2002 Chaparral. Every time we backed up water would leak into the bilge. Any day you get back to the dock in one piece is a good day!
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Today my fishing partner lost her phone when launching me. It was her first time and she was worried. Fortunately no problems.
 
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