My marina called me last week and said they found a hole in the bellows and once the water got up to the back swim deck that was all she wrote...blub, blub, blub...

Went out on Saturday to talk with them and to quote my marina guy: "Well, the adjuster is coming out on Tuesday to go over the boat and tell me what he will and won't cover"... That sounds somewhat hopeful at least, right?

Although jeez....the water was all the way into the forward cabin...high enough to crisp out the shore power panel mounted under the sink. I'm just curious as to when a boat becomes written off as a total loss...there has to be one hell of a lot of man hours involved in redoing all the electrical, and even at that, who knows what future problems may lie in wait?

They took some digital pictures of the boat when it was in the water...I'll try and post some pix on Tuesday.
Just say a group OSO prayer that the adjuster is in a giving mood, okay??

G....I hope it goes well for you. You deserve it!!! You're luck isn't much better than mine these days!!!

Keep us posted will ya??

G: I will cross my figures for ya on this one. I never give Insurance companies a inch tell I find out what I am getting.

Jon

Major bummer G-force. I once had a boat with the same problem, but it kept recurring. I named the boat "Bottom Seaker". Course that was when I was still single.

Hope they treat you right. Keep us posted.

BT

Hopefully it's the marina's fault the hole is in the bellows beacuse the insurance co. could claim it as poor maintenence on your part, nothing is covered then.

No it doesn't.
They're going try and weasel out of anything they can. Be prepaired to fight. Not real sure but I think if the repair cost is around 60% of the book value they consider it a total loss. You could buy it back from the ins. co. and fix it yourself.

So Craig.....any news???????

(sigh)....

After much hesitation and trepidation I called the marina today to find out what the verdict was.
The adjuster came out late yesterday and looked at the boat. Wanted to know where the props were (i have them), wanted the marina to get him pictures of the boat (they have them), and an estimate (you'd think after a month they might have had time to do that, huh? ).

So....it sounds like they'll at least be paying SOMETHING, right? At least the guy didn't start laughing and just walk away after seeing the hole in the bellows.

So...I'm just going to have my marina pull the 454's and Alpha's out and what better time to put in fresh power/drives?
My 502's are STILL in a shop locally (the guy hasn't even looked at them in 6 months), and my Bravo's are at another shop.
Note to self: be sure to check bellows on the Bravo's

Note from all your OSO freinds: Chec k the bellows on the Bravo drives.

What about bilge pumps & auto switches?

That's the part I have trouble understanding - the hole in the bellows isn't THAT big, and I have a Rule 2000 bilge pump in the engine compartment which is/was working (the marina guys hooked up a battery and the pump went right on).

Now granted, I was told that once the water reached a certain level hydraulics did it's thing, but I would have thought a 2000 gallon an hour pump could have kept up with a bellows leak - and yep, my shore power was plugged in so it couldn't have been a drained battery.