Splashed the 72 Seafari - what I learned...

[finestkind]

congrads on the ride!!! It was funny reading your post cause i felt like i was reading something i would've written, cause it is everything i deal with. I end up leaving plugs in my deck scupper holes while I am using the boat. seeing the scuppers are at waterline if i stand in the back of boat while hauling lobster traps i fill the rear with water, cause it flows freely into boat. So i keep the plugs in until i wash down boat or if it is on my moring (only cause of rain). I've also got a problem with sinking my boat!! lol sounds pretty messed up but where i moore my boat i deal with tides, so when i'm on the ground at low tide the boat sits very tilted because of the deep v hull. Sometimes it looks as if it will tip over. So what happens is water comes in the splashwell scuppers (because of the angle is so severe) and goes into my splashwell and then the water goes into my so called water tight hatch and into my bildge which runs my bildge pump after a couple of tides. It dosn't let in alot because the so called water tight hatch holds most out, but after a few tides there's enough to run the bildge pump. This only happens for about 10-15 minutes each tide, which wasn't a problem when i use the boat every other day or even every weekend because the battery gets charged back up. But i left the boat for three weeks and the battery died from the pump running so much. So got a day off of work and went to go fishing and found water right over my transom and my boat completely flooded!!!! so not knowing how long it was like this, cause i wasn't down to the boat for three weeks i was very releaved to learn that the boat doesn't sink completly full of water!!!! the bad part was the battery underwater (thankfully it was dead, so nothing fried) and all my tackle and other stuff was soaked. Oh and my porta-potty (which wasn't empty) was upside down floating in my cabin which was a little smelly!!! But the good thing was that the boat didn't sink!!!! Which kept my engine above the water!!!!!! Thank God!!!!! So seeing the water was above the transom it was pretty hard to bale out the boat so i spun the boat around and with help of one friend i pulled the transom as far up as i could on the shore which made the water line about a half an inch below the transom so i could start bailing!!!! I was very lucky because usually boats flip over from the rushing tide once they fill with water. Over the years I have seen a handful of boats in this creek completely upside down, from filling with water and flipping over. SO to fix this problem i got plugs for the splashwell scupper holes aswell as my deck scuppers. so now at the changing rising tide the water can't go freely into the spashwell. I don't leave the plugs in the deck scuppers on moring cause it dosn't create a problem, only a little water comes in and then the boat floats and comes out (this water dosn't get into the bildge, its only a little water directly about the floor scupper hole and then goes right out when boat starts to float.) Oh the reason the water gets this high up on the transom is not just because of the deep v it also sits with the bow of the boat up higher because of the angle of the creek bottom. so it takes a little while for the water to get high enough for the boat to lift up in the rear. sounds like a big deal but i have been in this creek since a kid and live right next to it so i usually us the boat daily and always keep an eye on it. So thats my little story so hopefully it won't happen to you now that you know about it!!! LOLOL but everything else you wrote is true with my boat the speed, the better ride a a little higher speed, the pain in the butt anchor set up (which i deffinatley want to change to fdheld34's set up!!!) But for the most part I love my Seafari!!! She gets lots of use in Cape Cod Bay and takes a beating!!!! She's been out in some pretty nasty weather and takes it well!!!! So good luck with yours and HAVE FUN!!!!