Bilged a couple times and it ran for 5 seconds each time. Not a lot of water in bilge.
Gotta make sure you're starting from a known-good place. Jack up the front of your boat as high as possible and drain the boat. Add a block or two under the jack to raise it higher than usual, I'd guess 6-8" block under the jack would get you pretty close to draining 99-100% of all the water. Open the inspection hatch on your cleanout tray, stick a light down in there, and visually verify that you don't still have water flowing back to the drain. If you aren't certain you're launching with no water in the boat, you can't figure out if you've got old or new water in the bilge. If you're on a lift and not a trailer, you either need to get your trailer and pull it to raise it and get everything out, or figure out some way to ensure you have an empty bilge. USUALLY getting on plane and running the bilge while on plane will do a decent job, but it will NOT get everything out. Your bow NEEDS to be raised, and raised quite a bit, for you to know for sure that you've got as much out as possible. Thinking it's good enough, is not "good enough" Water will hide under your ski locker if the bow isn't raised high enough to drain well.
@Judge and
@sunbyrned have great troubleshooting tips, especially if that is the type of cleanout plug you have. If it's not sealed, water will enter the cleanout tray and likely leak into your bilge around anything that's not sealed, like those cleanout port tubes
@sunbyrned mentioned. Since you were only driving for 10 minutes, that sounds like it could be contributing to the initial 5 second pump of water IF your bilge was already empty. If the bilge was NOT empty, this might be the reason for the next (final?) 5 second pump, and the old water in the bilge was the cause of the first 5 second pump. Give us that info of whether or not you know the bow was jacked up - HIGH - and all the water was gone or not.
@ZippyBoater has another great suggestion for you - you need to check the scupper. Plastic? Replace it with a stainless one and make sure it's sealed well under the flange and around the edges of that scupper. Metal already? If you didn't do it, see if you can take the nut off the backside and see if there's any squeeze out of sealant around that hole. If not, or if it's not even around the scupper hole, seal it up really well and put the nut back on - if you're really ambitious, you might want to pull the whole shebang and reseal it so you're certain it's done. Your call, if you're comfortable doing it. The plastic scupper COULD be cracked like
@suke said, and only leaks while under power (pressure being applied at that point only), so with the age of the boat, if it's plastic, I'd replace that with a stainless one anyway, for peace of mind.
While in the water if you open the ski locker drain water pushes in really fast.
It sounds like you had the drain plug IN, on the drain in the ski locker. If that's correct, was water coming in around the edges of the drain fitting when the plug was in? If not, perfect. If the answer is yes, remove the fitting, add sealant under the fitting, and put the fitting back in place. The reason the water is coming in fast when that drain is open is that is the lowest part of the boat when it's on the water, and not in motion. You were standing above that area, causing all the excess bilge water to run to the place where there was an opening, and that's why the water was coming in - you still had water in the bilge, but not
enough water for it to rise to the level of the bilge pump in the engine compartment. This is the reason you need to raise the bow of the boat to ensure you have as much water out of the boat as possible. Your bilge pump isn't at the lowest point in the boat, so you're dragging around excess water until enough comes in for it to reach the pump and trip the float, sending it out the side of the boat.
@Rodder77 mentioned the EZ Locks, for those plugs, they seem like a lifesaver for more than just water intrusion - damage to the cover or blowouts in general might have you dead in the water with possible damage to the hatch switches, as some folks here have experienced. Jeff has a great product for you guys with that type of plug.
It sounds like everyone else has the major items covered for you to check - you didn't let us know what was already done to it. You posted in another old thread, again without really mentioning what you tried or did already. The only other item that comes to mind with the data you gave us (10 minutes under power, 4 hour float) is that your rub rail could be the culprit as well. There's threads around here about that, but let us know some more info or what your plan of attack is, and the more info you can gather and pass on, the better the ideas you will get for solving this.
The good thing is that while it feels like a lot of water, look around here and you'll see that it's pretty common, and not necessarily something to panic over, but great to be aware of like you are. You'll get this sorted out with some reading and feeding us some info so we can point you in the right direction.
