J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment Draining boat by drilling a hole in the bottom

Ok - sounds like something you see in a cartoon where a character drills a hole in the bottom of the boat to drain it. Well I did that today and it worked! Ok - The boat was not in the water but on the hard... For those who recall the thread on the "hidden bilge", refresh your memory here: https://j30.us/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/5934/Dewatering_Aft_Bilge_Need_Advi.html#Post5934

Rhapsody kept having water appear in the aft flat section of the main bilge, and still did until today. It wasn't the icebox drain because that is empty. While preparing the keel for bottom painting, I ground down the fairing material along the seam and had a very slow drip at the aft end of the keel. I decided to drill a 1/4" hole about an inch behind the keel to see if there was water. Presto - when I got through the fiberglass, a solid stream of water ran out - I estimate over a gallon. I hooked a vacuum hose to the hole and extracted another pint of water over a 3 hour period. I snooped around inside the boat and found air noise coming from around the corrugated bilge pump line by the engine compartment and where it enters the main bilge. The water that previously kept collecting in the aft section of the main bilge is no longer there!

My temporary fix is to make sure that the outside of the bilge hose is thoroughly sealed where is exits the glassed in portion to prevent a source of water from getting into the "hidden bilge. I ran a replacement hose inside the original hose two years back, so the bilge hose itself should not be leaking into the hidden bilge.

Longer term means I'll probably vacuum bag and heat the entire hull next off-season. I'm going to do moisture meter readings before the boat is launched to see if I can establish a baseline for comparison next fall, and after the vacuum bagging.

Oh yeah - I'm patching the hole drilled in the bottom before splashing.

My boat has an aft bilge that does not fully drain to the sump. I can reach my arm into the aft bilge and spunge it out through the holes in the fibreglass structure that the engine mounts to. But that is rather inconvenient.

It was clear that the source of the water accumulating in the aft bilge is the stuffing box. The water runs from the seal down the engine liner and through small holes in the engine liner into the aft bilge.

I simply sealed the small holes in the engine liner with silicone. Now I only have to mop out the engine liner, which is much more accessible. You may want to try the same thing if you think the source is the stuffing box.