What a Day! Problems inside
 

Saturday , the Blue Angels fly In Pensacola ,Florida every year , always a week after the fourth. I started going to the show from Alabama by boat about ten years ago. Its around a 1.5 to 2 hour trip depending on where you launch.
All of my friends go every year also . Me just acquiring my 32 fever, i thought what better trip to make in it .
So we hit the water at about 7.30 A.M. and have a great trip over , got to experience the boat in full form , rough water , smooth , running all out . It was a great ride. We get to the spot and park with the other 800 to 1000 boats , and had a blast.
Upon time for departure , I didnt think to check my water pressure , what a mistake. about 3 to 5 mins into it , noticed both engines heating up. shut it down to do a quick look and found out there was no pressure. Right away figured i must have lost sea pumps but just could not figure out why. I guess upon backing up to the sand bar is when it happened. Like i mentioned ive had several boats , most inboard combos , but never with bravos. Only Alphas. Ive treated them all the same, and really never puked a lower impeller so i just could believe this to be true now. I did replace my sea pumps upon purchase.
Anyways a friend came and towed me all the way home. On the way i had plenty of time to look and explore , and had some tools on hand. Long story short , both cooling systems were completely impacted with sand. SOlid!!! I got one running on the way , and actually unhooked from my friend, but after about 30 mins into it we both hit another sand bar , and the same thing happened. So i got towed the rest of the way home. 5 hours total!!!
On Sunday i went out and completely unhooked all the hoses , and after alot of effort got both engines cleaned out . About what appeared to be 5 gallons of sand in all. Both engines seem to be making pressure now , but wanted to put it in the water and test it tonight , but its been storming all evening.
I was totally disgusted all Saturday evening with contemplating even selling.
IM all better now , but my question is . Do these things actually clog this easy???? It was backed up to the sandbar all day , but LIke i mentioned i think that it happend while backing up to it. ANY SUGGESTIONS? Other than moving somewhere where there is only fresh deep water??????

I have a 2000 Fountain with a bravo One. My outdrive has a low water pickup ONLY and the second time I took it out sucked sand up. Blew sea pump out, so yes they suck sand up that easy I replaced sea pump and back flushed the engine and all the coolers. now I am picky about where I park our boat. Also got sand in the hose from the block to the water pressure gauge. Unhooked the gauge and ran a hose into a 5 gallon bucket while I was running to clean that out.

I didnt think to flush the gauges out until i got all the rest done. It took me all day to flush , and undo everything. I did find some seaweed , and what appeared to be some rocks obstructing the front oil cooler on my port motor, which was running a little hotter than the starboard , and i couldnt figure out why. I think that will solve that problem .
I just cannot believe that i havent heard of more problems like this.
Is there any other pickup than the low water style?

Low water only on my 27. I was picky about where I put it because of the pickup. It will clog. After clearning the sand the impeller and housing on the raw water pump is probably done. That is why the temp is higher than usual.

Do you have room for a sea strainer? At least it would keep the sand out of the engine.

sea strainer
 

Ive kinda been questioning that , i would like to look into installing them ,if in fact it will help . I would much rather be noticing my temps go up , and being able to lift the hatch and clean the strainer out , instead of dismantling the whole cooling system. But my question is , will a sea strainer work with fine sand?

No...Dont ask me how i know.........Be SURE to pull the drain plugs on the block and rod them out or you will have BIG problems...Dont ask me how I know....

If you have Low water pick=ups you will battle this problem

Sea strainers are the way to go. On my old '01 29 Fever w/Imco xtreme drive (low water pickup) one time I pulled up to the beach and had to give it quite a bit of throttle backing off when i left which must of kicked up a lot of sand. I finally got off and headed back to the launch and about midway I noticed my engine temp rising. I opened the hatch and my sea strainer was packed full of sand. It took about 2 minutes to open the cover and clean the sand out and I was on my way. Bottom line is a sea strainer is a great investment and can save your engine especially if you have a low water p/u.

Same thing happened to me. Fortunately it happened at the launch and I didn't go far. I have sea strainers on a triple engine Fountain 47 with Bravo's and it only took about 3 seconds powering off the trailer because it was early in the season and the floating docks were not in at the launch yet. The impellers were completely trashed and I drained a lot of small gravel particles and sand out of all threee motors. I couldn't believe how easily the stuff got sucked in. I posted on here because I couldn't figure it out and a bunch of people clued me in so I knew exactly what the problem was and didn't cause more damage or waste a bunch of time and money.

where are the drains on the block?
It honestly didnt look like it made it throught the thermostat housing , but hey who knows