Will my boat sink? What should I do?

[CalebD]

Since Halekai, er, mainesail has not piped up yet I will plug his web pages on the 'how to' of thru-hulls and seacocks.
See the first two links that have great pictures and explanations here: "How To" - The Boat Projects & Upgrade Blogs Photo Gallery by Maine Sailing at pbase.com

[jbondy]

A related question: It appears you have two hoses running from that valve. One is the raw water intake for the engine cooling system. What is the other? FWIW - I don't recall if it was here or one of the other forums I monitor, but there was recently significant discussion about the possible downside of sharing the engine coolant intake with anything else. The bottom line was that it wasn't considered a good idea.

[runner]

Off topic but close enough. My father was given a fancy bass boat that had been sitting in a barn for years. We tuned it up and headed to Winter's Park to test things out. It would really move and seemed perfect for the first couple of miles. Then it seemed to start losing some power. By the time I got back in, I had all of my passengers as far forward on the bow as they could get and the fuel tank was completely under water.
All but one of the old thru hull fittings had snapped off leaviong multiple holes in the hull. Those plastic thru hull fittings age and decay sitting dry. We had to replace all of them. West Marine sells a bag full of different sized plugs just for that possible problem. Never go out very far without having a plug for every hole in the hull!
In our case, the boat was pretty much unsinkable to begin with and all I had to do was keep her level and get back to the dock. Still, when the water started coming up thru the floor drains, it was not a nice feeling!

[countrybumpkin]

Originally Posted by jbondy

A related question: It appears you have two hoses running from that valve. One is the raw water intake for the engine cooling system. What is the other?

The exhaust? I have to trace it.

[J36ZT]

CB,

It looks like you've made an effective emergency repair. It's easy for the rest of us to be armchair sailors. As for whether to trust it or not and for how long...only you can make that call.

Your idea of inducing heel by halyard is not a new one. If I'm correct, some riggers will do this when they tune masts. And, I've heard of the halyard to an anchor trick when a boat has run aground. But, there are dangers... Several years ago, I saw the halyard to induce heel trick done to repair a thru-hull, and it worked well for the most part. The guy forgot to close the seacocks on the other side of the boat. By the time the guy had replaced the thru-hull and valve, his boat was half-filled with water. He hadn't noticed the rising waterline because the boat was heeled.

So, be careful and think things through.

Skipper, J/36 "Zero Tolerance"

[countrybumpkin]

Originally Posted by CalebD

Since Halekai, er, mainesail has not piped up yet I will plug his web pages on the 'how to' of thru-hulls and seacocks.
See the first two links that have great pictures and explanations here: "How To" - The Boat Projects & Upgrade Blogs Photo Gallery by Maine Sailing at pbase.com

Wow! Great webpage! So much information and the pictures are fantastic!

(and it's free!)

Thanks CalebD for posting and thanks to mainsail for creating.

good stuff.......

[sailingdog]

Countrybumpkin-

Maine sailing's handle here is Halekai36. He's a good egg, and one of the SN members I've met in person.