Help ! my 186 Bay is sinking !!!!!

[willg61]

I own a 180 bay and have had it at the dock all summer and recently noticed that everytime I go to the dock the battery is dead and the boat is filled up with water. Yesterday I pulled it out of the water, brought it home and fille dit up with water and it appears as if one of the drain plug housings at the rear bottom of the boat was leaking. Question; can this be the problem as to why overnight the boat would fill up with water? What is the white plastic hole above the drain plugs on the back of the boat? How do I fix the leaky drainplug housing?

[190steve.s]

the portside hole is the bilge pump..the starboard is fuel vent/overflow..
Make sure you did not cross-thread drainplug..
The simple fix is new or additional garden hose rubber washers.
The other is to install ss drain plugs. The plugs are available through dealer
or run a search thread for there is a link somewhere on this site that will save you
some bucks

[MolarBoater]

Make sure your bilge drain is sitting above the water line or you may be getting "back siphoning", you may need to add a flapper scupper over the outside thru hull if it is at or below the waterline.
Bilge pumps flow in both directions if allowed. Also make sure the bilge discharge hose has a high loop in it when mounted to the transome wall.

[ILLOGICAL GGC]

sounds to me like you got bad washers on the 2 drain plugs and water is entering the bilge and then the pump comes on and pumps till the battery dies. add gardern hose washers or 7/8 orings to give a positive seal on the plug. i would even consider replacing the plastic drain plugs with S S or brass garbard style drains with brass square head plugs,

also since you own a 186 ,the side scuppers can be letting water back flow onto the deck which in turn finds its way to the bilge under the splash well cover and the same pump running /dead battery scenario. this is esp. true should you have a four stroke motor---been there --experienced that ---got me a 210 instead of the tee shirt

[MolarBoater]

I have done everything from washer replacement, ss plug whole replacement(nice), flapper replacement on side scuppers to ball/cage type (my favorite), side scuppers sealed and modified to transom scuppers/ball in cage. I prefer the side scuppers with ball in cage if anyone is pondering the modification, they are more effective at draining everything out and just as dry as transome without the loss of transome storage area.

Lets see, I did diagnose backsiphoning and thought that was the end all to end all fixes but was a side effect of water intrusion into inner hull, causing the transome to sit @1-2" lower at the dock and that caused the bilge thru hull to sit just under the waterline which allowed water to run back into the bilge after the bilge completed it's cycle.

So, I am back to trying to make sure there is no continuous inner hull water intrusion which could cause the "other" water intrusion situations.

Check all your hoses and clamps and the thru hull nipples for cracks. Check baitwell pump for cracks or leakage.

Use a water hose while the boat is on the trailer and see if water leaks out of the transom plugs....mine never would but should be easy to check.

My next diagnostic method will be selectively plugging thru hulls with dowels to isolate a potental leak. Gives me something to look forward to in the Spring.

I'd do it now, but in Alabama, the waterlevel in the lakes are so low from draught I can't even launch the boat at the local lake! That lake has a leak too!

Guess we will eventually run out of ways for water to enter a boat. All boats leak for the most part at some time but the drier the better.