Water in Bilge
 

My Fountain continually gets water in the bilge and it is nearly impossible to get it all out short of shop vacing it out every time. The boat is stored on a lift year round. I run the bilge pumps and get the majority out, but there is still a small amount in there every week.

Will a little water in the bilge hurt or cause rot or should it be dried every week after use?

Why can't you just pull the plug?

Even if you pull the drain plugs (two on many Fountains) on the transom, a very small amount of water will remain because the drain plug isn't exactly level with the lowest part of the bilge on most boats.

Getting back to the original question, ideally, we'd all like a perfectly dry bilge. Realistically, that's just not going to happen for all sorts of reasons. Is that small amout of remaining water going to hurt you? Generally speaking, no.

Where water in the bilge does hurt you is if you have any sort of breach in the layup which could allow water it get into the laminate and / or wood and cause problems. Where does this happen? The most common place is where holes have been drilled for fasteners and no fully sealed. Another common place is cracks that develop over time.

In summary, a nice dry bilge is desireable, but don't worry yourself to death over it. Keeping it nice and clean (and dry) will help you at resale time though.

Is the water coming from rain or is there a leak when in the water? If not from rain, it would be a good idea to try to locate the source of the leak. I usually leave my Formula in the water for about 4 dry days (no rain) and have never had a drop of water in the bilge.

I ignored small amounts of water in the bilge for a few years until I figured out my upper swival pin was leaking. In addition to fixing that I ended up having to replace my fuel tank because of it. A dry bilge is nice. If that's salt water sloshing around your bilge there's lots of stuff it can damage like starters, oil pans, motor mounts etc.

Find out where it's coming in. Could very well be a simple fix. The bilges on my boats are are 100% dry.

Theres a post in the fountian treads about the bilge outlet being under water when the boats sitting still. Sounds like a lot of them having this problem. Drains back through the pump. Artie

It doesn't take much water leaking in to look like a lot in the bilge.

You could have a small leak around the windshield, a cleat, rail fitting...just about any penetration in the deck. The original caulking around these fittings doesn't last forever and you will run yourself nuts trying to isolate it. Re- Caulk all of the deck penetrations every 2~3 years...especially if you are doing a lot of hard offshore running.

This isn't a big deal...just part of the "gig" of owning and maintaining a boat.:evilb: