Thunderbuddies-

At LOTO this weekend, we encountered a bit of precipitation...as in...it rained on the way down, it rained Friday night, it rained all day Saturday, it rained Saturday night, and it rained a little on Sunday morning.

Somehow...the rain got IN to the cabin. This does not a pleasant olfactory situation make. The carpet was wet, which I traced backwards to the rearmost cushion on the starboard side (in front of the hanging locker). This, I traced back to the storage compartment above...where water had collected and then leaked down through one of the LED light holes.

There is a popup mushroom cleat over that compartment which COULD be the source of incursion...but other circumstances exist as well. Due to the size of the slip I had rented, about the front 4 feet of nose stuck out from the slanted roof...which meant the front hatch, mid-cleat area, and both front cleats as well as the pop-up bow light were under constant bombardment not only from just rain, but from collected rain running off the roof.

I also found water collected under the V-berth...but only in the sides of that storage area separated from the middle by the stringers.

Any suggestions on where to start looking? I much prefer the water to stay outside of the boat.

-mike

1) Make sure the drain cups are have their bottom plugs on them on all of the cleats.
2) Make sure you don't have any water coming in around any of the cleats.
3) Remember that when it does rain, the steps down the top side of the hull basically become a freeway gully-wash with all of the rain off of the bow. I think your suspicion could be right that water was coming in around the mushroom cleat.
4) You could very well have had some water seep through one or both of the deck hatches as well from all of that water coming down off the roof. That would have been a LARGE volume of water, and enough to push through past the seals on the cabin hatches.

Only the forward hatch was under "bombardment," and I could find NO dampness around that area. Headliner was totally dry. A similar thing happened to us last year while towing, and we discovered that some person not-to-be-named-here-because-I-live-with-her only latched one side of the hatch...70 mph tow in a HUGE rainstorm...yeah...things got wet in there.

What do you mean by "bottom cups" on the cleats? I'm guessing I am going to have to look behind the "Superman" panel...how does that come off?

I don't know how that front cabin 5-sided panel attaches. Maybe Pat can comment. It MIGHT be "Christmas Tree panel clips", but I doubt it as I've never seen Pat use them before.

Each of your cleats have a "cup" on the bottom of them. On the bottom of that cup is a fitting that you can either cap off, or attach a drain hose to.

If you look in your upper "lear jet" storage compartments, you will see the carpeted boxes that surround where your cleats come through the deck. Those come off with a couple of Phillips screws that are buried in the carpet. Does your boat have a drain on the bow? He put them on some of the later boats; a 3-way drain that takes the water from the bow light and two front bow cleats. But most always, he's just capped off all of the drains over the cabin.


Remember due to recessed deck, and when the boat is in the water pitched slightly up; and while you were under that much rainfall...
...the hatch closest to the helm was probably totally underwater at points due to the heavy rainfall coming off the roof. That may have been enough to have had water seep through the seals.

Also, the cabin bilge pump will not get every last drop of water out due to the stringer configuration. Take your shop-vac, and place it OVER the through hull on the outside of the boat where the bilge pump dumps overboard. It will suck through the pump and take out as much as possible. IF I ever end up with water in the step, I usually pour a bit of Febreeze or similar down there after I get all the water out.

Open the pop-up bow light. Pour a little water into it and make sure it is draining out the little thru-hull by the bow eye. If not the hose came off, rotted or whatever.

Thanks guys!

I just had a similar thing happen on my 32'. Cabin floor had a "squishable" amount of water on the carpet. The floor area I am referring to starts at the bottom of the 2nd step and spans the lower floor section. Stairs, sides where bench seating, front part of the cabin, head liner, cushions, etc. were all dry, just the lower floor section and it was soaked.

Now 2 things right before this happened;

1) I was washing anti freeze stuff out of the water tank, filling it up and running the sink for the water to escape. Water was flowing out the side of the boat, but I should check to see if there is a leak in the line out. Water line in, need to find this and check it. Where is the water tank, could a leak there cause this?

2) I was cleaning out the bilge and the boat was parked on a minor downhill incline. Water did flow forward. Once I got jack stands to lift up the front the water drained but there was still sloshing water in the cabin floor.

Writing this out I am thinking that there is a hose issue with the sink. I do not think it is directly under the sink though because I kept checking the water pump under the sink to see if it was hot and I noticed no moisture there.

Any thoughts on where water could be coming from. We did get a ton of rain the day before, could ~ 1gal of water been held somewhere and then I did something to release it on to the floor?

I've only had this for 2 days so I have a ton to learn.

Still seeing ideas on how this boat should be propped, it has the 150:1 bravo 1 outdrives and the mercury performance 450hp engines. I have a loaner 21p 4 blade set I am using till my 25p 4 blade set arrives. I don't recall the brand, but I suspect they are reasonably good SS props for ~ $500 each. I do have the option to see how these work and get something else, but i'd prefer the trial and error approach.

Pull the panel at front of v berth. Even though the cleats are plugged and there is a bow light drain somehow i still get water in that compartment sometimes.

I had same issue.

I installed the correct size drain in the hull and also needed to replace the drain cup on the bow light, one grommet was missing and both wires were coming through the hole with no grommet. So between the drain fitting not being the right size to drain the amount of water causing the light cup to overflow, the overflow was also from the missing grommet.

Not a drop of water after fixing those 2 issues.

All the white silicone was from someone that tried to seal the hose on the wrong sized drain.

The new drain isn't as small as the original but at least now it is all sized correctly and can flow the amount of water without backing up.



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