20 | BOATINGMAG.COM | APRIL 2018GET OFF
THE BOAT!
WE’RE SINKING!
Quick thinking averts a catastrophe.
WANTED: YOUR STORIES Share your boating mistakes and mishaps so that your
fellow boaters might learn from your experience. Send us your first-person accounts, includ-
ing what went wrong, what you’d do differently, your name and your city, to editor@boating
mag.com and use “ILAB” in the subject line. If your experience is selected, we’ll send you a
$100 West Marine gift card.I
planned a short boat ride aboard my 330 Sea Ray Sundancer from the dock
to a local waterfront restaurant located on Lake of the Ozarks. The water
was a little rough but nothing that bad, though the boat did hit one big
wave nearing the no-wake zone.
Pulling into the dock, an alarm sounded. I tied up quickly and searched for
its cause. Nothing on the helm looked funny, and the carbon-monoxide detec-
tor was not sounding. My friend Tim who was aboard suggested checking the
bilge. We pulled up the hatches, looked, and I yelled to Tim and my wife, Kim,
“Get the valuables. Get off the boat! We’re sinking!” The water was inches away
from going over the bilge bulkhead and into the cabin.
I decided I wasn’t going down without knowing what had happened. I dived
between the engines and felt around where the water was coming in. I stuck
my hand over the small raised portion
of the bottom of the boat and tried to
stop the water from rushing in. My
hand alone couldn’t hold it, so someone
threw me a rag. I stuck it in the hole
and put my hand over that. That did the
trick. The water slowed to a trickle, and
the bilge pumps took over. Finally, after
about 30 minutes of holding it down,
the water was nearly gone, but I told the people around that I couldn’t hold it
all night. My buddy Jason, who was docked nearby and watching, had a drain
plug on his boat. He went and brought it to me, I put it on, and it did the job.The next morning, they pulled
out the boat, and the mechanic said
the transducer had popped off. He
asked if it had been on a lift lately,
but I informed him the last haul-out
occurred two years ago. It seems two
years prior when the boat was being
bottom-painted, they had put it on
a lift that wasn’t right for the boat,
which had weakened the opening.
Hitting the wave finally popped the
transducer off. The mechanic fixed it
in a matter of hours, and the boat was
good to go.
The lesson learned: Have drain
plugs on board, just in case there’s
an emergency on your boat or
another boat.
Neil Fiala
St. Louis, Missouri[Tapered, softwood dowels, known
as bungs, and toilet-ring wax will also
stem or stop leaks aboard. —Ed.]“Get the valuables. Get off
the boat! We’re sinking!”
The water was inches away
from going over the bilge
bulkhead and into the cabin.
ILLUSTRATION: TIM BOWER