My near-sinking experience was when I invited (2) friends to fish with me - one of them is known as ' Big Guy'. He's a BIG GUY - must weigh close to 300 lbs. I have a 23' Tsunami i/o. We were fishing out in the ocean for stripers and each time I'd stop to drift and then restart I'd hear a funny 'chirp' in the engine. I know my boat, as I rebuilt her bottom-up back in 2003/4. I didn't think much of it and I had a 35 gallon livewell loaded with bunker on the i/o box and I didn't want to move it.
When I zipped back into the bay, I anchored, tossed the bunker, emptied the livewell and tilted the i/o box to find that saltwater was up to my flywheel ! The noise had been water on by belt ! And of course, the auto bilge failed. I put the manual Water Puppy bilge on and dumped her !
What had happened ? Big Guy was fishing in the aft corner of the boat. We all had boots on and the aft had water pooling near that #@$#^%* thru-floor scupper. Water was not only pooling - BUT, without me knowing, it was going under the i/o cover, over the 3" lip to the bilge and filling my hull !
Ugghh !
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