Bungs

[billyruffn]

Twenty years ago I prep-ed a friend's boat for a North Atlantic west-to-east high latitude passage. I tied a wooden bung to every thru hull and put a separate manual bilge pump in one of the lockers. Years later when I bought BR I did the same thing. I've never had the occasion to use either the bungs or the Edson "save the boat" pump.

Today, I received an email from my friend in the UK that read in part:

"Thanks for your foresight in putting wooden emergency bungs and a pump on CW. I hit a reef in Cuan sound today in a fierce tide and managed to knock out the galley skin fitting. We managed to hammer a bung into the hole and we have limped back to Ardfern where the yard promise they'll lift the boat later today and examine the damage. Its not a good feeling but could so easily have been so much worse."

Buy the bungs -- they're cheap insurance.

[hellosailor]

Billy, what I can't figure, in this age of premade everything, is why the bungs are always sold without a hole drilled in the top of them. You know, a hole so you can just tie on a string and tie them off to where they need to be.

I don't expect the string, just really would have gotten our set scattered around and tied down faster is they'd come with, say 3/8" or 1/2" or 10mm holes drilled across the top.

Rounding up the drill, drilling all the holes, cleaning up the shavings...kept bumping the project down the ToDo List for too long. You'd think, in a milling shop, where they're already doing woodwork, a fast slap in a drill press and they'd barely have to add a dime to the price. But I'd pay 'em a buck to have them pre-drilled and ready to go FOR ME.