Water in hull

[Skipper]

The local town government is going to auction off their 1986 19' Seacraft. I am intereted in bidding on it. I have talked with the officer who has run the boat from the beginning. He told me originally that the boat was 'a little heavy'. He didn't know why. Was sluggish. Wondered if they needed to change prop. Or had it taken on some water? When they took it to the marina to have it commissioned, they decided to have it weighed. Taking rough account of what they had on the boat, they figured that the boat was 800 pounds overweight! He assumes water has gotten in (a lot of water, it seems to me), maybe from somewhere on the top deck. He is not sure.

Assuming the marina didn't make a mistake in weighing the boat, I have some questions.

1. 800 pounds seems a lot. Is this possible?

2. Assuming the boat does have 800 pounds of water in her somewhere, is it possible to get the water out, repair dry rot and whatever else needs to be repaired?

3. If it is possible to do this -- or, in my case, to have it done -- is it possible to do it and stay out of bankruptcy?

4. Is it worth doing? This of course would depend on how much one paid for the boat. But aside from money, might one expect other problems, of the sort that might lead one to say 'no thanks'?

If any one has any light to shed on this situation, I would be most grateful.

Skipper

[Bigshrimpin]

what was the exact weight of the boat? Did they factor in fuel, batteries, rigging, etc. either way . . . It's likely that some of the foam is saturated with water and will need to be removed or dried out. When any company builds boats . . . the listed weight usually turns out to be +/- 10% or more.

Bid accordingly . . . how much is your time worth? Do you have extra time/money/fiberglass experience to take on this project? Having done a few of these projects . . . I'd say buy a working boat and go fishing.

[FELLOW-SHIP]

Water weighs 8.33 lbs per gal. that means you would have approx 100 gal of water in this boat almost two 55 gal drums. That is highly unlikely, there is no where and no way you could hide 100 gal. in a 19 foot boat. As far as worth it do you want it bad enough to spend the time and money to fix her up. Usually it will take twice the time and twice the cost you think it will to get a project boat back to your intended quality margin. On my boat I figured 6-8 months took me over a year. I bought the boat for $4,000 and finished it out the door for $32,000. So do you want it bad enough???



FellowShip
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Just for the Grins

[LTsHoney]

When I removed a transducer from the starboard side of the transom on my 18' CC, water began to pour out of the screw holes. I couldn't figure out where this water was coming from because the inside of the hull was dry above that area. At least a quart or maybe even a gallon of stale water came out, so I experimented and ran water onto the deck and watched the water not only drain out the scuppers, the bilge drain, but also the screw holes. I enlarged one of the screw holes and found a void between the bottom of the inner hull lining and the bottom of the boat. This area seems to capture water but I can't figure out where it originates. I've since installed a drain plug where the large screw hole was and now I open this along with the bilge drain to let the water out. No one can explain this cavity in the hull design. I'm not sure it doesn't exist on the port side either. I'll live with this until someone can show me a resonable fix. Good luck with your water situation.
LT