AR240 2014 standing water issue in head

[The6caseys]

When installing my porta potty in the head of my 2014 AR240, while drilling pilot holes I noticed water, quite a bit, start to come out of the holes

. I was on land on my trailer so I only "freaked out" a little bit! I let the water drain for about 30 minutes and there was enough to completely saturate a full size bath towel. Has anyone else experienced this and should I be alarmed? Thank you in advance for your experience and/or opinions

 

[Neutron]

Doesnt sound normal to me. Did the water come from under the floor?

 

[bronze_10]

I was talking to him on facebook about this... @Neutron the way i understand it is he drilled the holes for the porta pottie and the water started coming up from beneath the floor through the holes.

 

[Bill D]

My bet is that the boat / trailer were not on an incline enough to drain any water from the bilge. Mine can be parked on flat ground while stored with the drain plug open and when I pull it to an incline, a good 5+ gallons of water comes out.

 

[The6caseys]

Hey guys, I posted a pic and video on JB Facebook. Please feel free to take a look. I'm pretty sure I drained all the water out from my boat last fall. Even took a wet/dry vac and put it in all plug holes. I tilted the bow of the boat as far as it could go. It was stored indoors as well. I remember one day last summer while I was on the lake cleaning it, that I heard what sounded like water splashing around in the bottom part of the head. I just assumed it was on the outside of the boat and that was what I was hearing. Apparently, this was not the case:/ As my video shows, I drilled the holes and the water started oozing out. Enough to completely saturate a big towel. I even got into the floor locker area and took off the carpeted panel that separates the head compartment from the locker. A little bit of water came out from one of the screw holes on the side and that was lower than the holes I drilled on the floor top:/ I can't figure it out and I just hoped someone else might have a clue. Thank you all for any input and hopefully we can all learn something from this even if I have to be the first to experience it

 

[bronze_10]

Im not sure what the subframe looks like in that area but i know water sitting in there is gonna be a bad thing.... something has to be blocked up with debris or something but i have no idea how to get to it.. is the boat still under warranty?

 

[MrMoose]

@The6caseys et al, I've had this conversations with a few Yamaha jet boat owners, and this topic has been discussed in other threads. I store my boat indoors, so other than the initial leaks that I fixed, I never noticed the kind of water problem in my boat until I had my boat outdoors for extended periods of time. I have a 2015, but I have spoken to Yamaha jet boat owners with pre 2015 hulls who have experienced the same problems. In 2015, my boat sat uncovered in a 40 minute downpour in Bimini. After my bilge pump ran till it could only suck air. I pulled the drain plug in my ski locker and water flowed into my ski locker from below. Just a quarter inch or so, but enough to tell me that there was water in the forward portion of the bilge, while the stern was "dry". While in Bimini that year, I mentioned this to @upperdeck, who suggested that you need a really, really, really steep driveway to get all of the water out of a Yamaha jet boat.
So, all our boats come off of the same assembly line with the same jigs and same basic design concepts, so if you're tempted to say that you don't have a problem, save your breath cuz I'm not buyin' what you're sellin'
A tour of the Yamaha factory to see what the inside of the hull shell looks like as well as what the inside of the deck shell looks like before they get joined up would solve the mystery.
Maybe it's a situation where there are cross-bracing ribs that prevent water from finding its way to the stern drain. Maybe the factory injects foam for sound deadening that prevents the water from efficiently flowing to the stern drain (if they do this, they need to run drainage lines). I dunno, but I bet that MOTHER YAMAHA KNOWS, and that they've KNOWN ABOUT THIS FOREVER.

I stuck an optical probe into my ski locker drain to see if I could learn anything. At the time, it was dry and I couldn't see anything that explained the previously observed water problem. One thing that I can say is that there isn't much room between the inner deck shell and the hull shell.

 

[The6caseys]

@MrMoose, thank you for enlightening me on this! I'm just glad I did this on my trailer in the driveway and not on the lake or this post would be much more explicative I have gotten caught in a down pour or two out there so your past experience can definitely relate to my current concern. I'm just gonna think positive and hope for the best Again, thank you for your feedback and Happy Boating!!!

 

[The6caseys]

Im not sure what the subframe looks like in that area but i know water sitting in there is gonna be a bad thing.... something has to be blocked up with debris or something but i have no idea how to get to it.. is the boat still under warranty?

No, bought it last year in fall "new" and had it stored where I bought it. Didn't think that the warranty ran until I picked it up:/ My fault and lesson learned. No worries I'm just gonna think positive and enjoy my time Thank you for responding!

 

[MrMoose]

With respect to my Bimini experience. After seeing water come up into my ski locker drain from the forward bilge, I opened the fuel compartment drain and the engine compartment drain, and there was no water flowing. In addition to all of this, I recently washed down the deck of my boat which caused some water to find its way into my engine compartment. There was a bit of water sitting in the bottom of my engine compartment, around my two bilge pumps. I assumed that water was backed-up from the bilge. I drained the bilge and the water was still there, even after a run on the lake. I soaked up the water in the bottom of the engine compartment with a towel, and it has been dry ever since. The reason for mentioning this is that it's worth noting that the bilge pump is located lower in the engine compartment than the engine compartment plug. I assumed that water would flow through the bilge pump mounting location and drain into the bilge, but mine seems to be sealed enough that a quarter inch of water will remain around the bilge pump.
This tells me that if I see water in the bottom of my engine compartment, it either came from the deck above, or from the cooling system.

 

[tdonoughue]

Well, let us just reason through a few bits of this.

Water seeks its own level. So if @The6caseys drilled holes and water came up through them, there must have been water above the level of the floor of the head compartment. Otherwise, it could not have come up through the drilled holes.

Further, if memory serves, the ski locker is lower in the boat than the head compartment. Certainly the plug for it is farther aft. Which then begs the question: was your ski locker plug in or out? If it was out and if water did not come up from there, we can derive that there was no fluid communication between where ever the water was and the ski locker drain. If it was in, then that is an unknown (for the moment).

But it is relatively well known that if you have water in the ski locker and open the plug, it will drain to the bilge (lower, below the engines) and ultimately out the aft bilge plug outside the boat. So, had the ski locker plug been in, had there been fluid communication between the area below the head and the area near the ski locker drain, that water would have been filling the lower bilge (and up into the engine compartment through the massive port aft of the engines) to a level that was higher than the level of the floor of the head compartment. Methinks you would have noticed that...

So then we can deduce that @MrMoose must be correct (something we could have deduced from his prior posts, but this deduction is much more fun): the only way that there could be water coming up from the holes is if there is no fluid communication between the area below the head and the remainder of the bilge.

We also know that the hull is not only self-bailing, but also unsinkable (it has been reported from tragic experiences that the boat will fill to just below the gunnels and will simply not sink below that). It has been reported this is accomplished with foam, and, in fact, if the bilge drains as we would expect it should, foam would be about the only way to accomplish such a feat (as the fiberglass is heavier than water, and if there is no air trapped between the hulls in an airtight manner, well, then the puppy would sink). So we know there is a flotation stuff of probably foam between the hulls.

Which means that there is indeed trappage of water in the forward part of the boat in between the hulls. QED.

P.S. The fixing thereof is left as an exercise to the reader. But as a hint, do you think going in from the anchor locker with a fish tape down amidships would work?

 

[swatski]

This tells me that if I see water in the bottom of my engine compartment, it either came from the deck above, or from the cooling system.

I'm not sure I get this. The bottom of the engine compartment has several openings to the bilge for water to flow in or out, includign the cutout for the factory bilge pump. The factory bilge pump sits VERY HIGH in relation to the actual bottom of the bilge, good 10-15 inches (!) above the bottom of the V (keel). Those pumps also need to be partially submerged to move water. So - there can be a lot of water in the bilge and inside the pseudo-double hull, sloshing around, until the boat is jacked up with the bow way up in the air - and only then all the water can drain out.
My second bilge pump BTW is going into the bilge, stern area. The lowest point I think I can mount it there is where the wooden supports (for ride plate bolts) are built in/encased:


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[zipper]

@swatski Would a "dropped" or recessed bridge across the wooden supports be worth it to support the new pump? Thought it may help to get a couple more inches of water out. After all the water I found in my hull in December, before it froze, I will be adding a pump in this area. I know how you like to do mods, kinda like Star Trek, to boldly go where no one has gone before. I know others have put second pumps in before.

 

[swatski]

@swatski Would a "dropped" or recessed bridge across the wooded supports be worth it to support the new pump? Thought it may help to get a couple more inches of water out. After all the water I found in my hull in December, before it froze, I will be adding a pump in this area. I know how you like to do mods, kinda like Star Trek, to boldly go where no one has gone before. I know others have put second pumps in before.

I would have, but am a little worried about clogging up the pump with all the crap that still flushes out of my bilge.
I'm debating the system, really want to go with the Ultra Jr switch (w/a simple non-automatic pump), hook it up on the automatic wire direct to battery (fused), and be done.

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[MrMoose]

Regarding extra bilge pumps. I had my dealer install a secondary pump and a water alarm. The Yamaha system (which displays on Connext) is the primary. If it fails, the secondary is mounted a little higher (on its own circuit direct to the battery and always on with its own outlet hose) and when the water gets to it, the pump runs and the high-water alarm sounds until the secondary pump evacuates enough water from the bilge. This tells me that the Yamaha system has failed. The only time that the secondary pump runs is when I test it annually by turning off my battery switches (killing the Connext system, and the Yamaha pump) and filling the bilge with a hose.

 

[PEARCE]

This thread is a good reminder for me to check the function of my bilge pump before we drop it in the water for the first time of the season next weekend hopefully.

 

[swatski]

Regarding extra bilge pumps. I had my dealer install a secondary pump and a water alarm. The Yamaha system (which displays on Connext) is the primary. If it fails, the secondary is mounted a little higher (on its own circuit direct to the battery and always on with its own outlet hose) and when the water gets to it, the pump runs and the high-water alarm sounds until the secondary pump evacuates enough water from the bilge. This tells me that the Yamaha system has failed. The only time that the secondary pump runs is when I test it annually by turning off my battery switches (killing the Connext system, and the Yamaha pump) and filling the bilge with a hose.

That should be the golden standard of any secondary bilge pump install.
But, I really dislike how much water it takes in the bilge (a lot) for the primary (factory) pump to start pumping.

I think a bilge pump is the one thing I want wired directly to battery (fused), bypassing all the switches. The only problem with that of course is - you need to trust your switch! Unfortunately, some of the switches tend to get stuck in the "on" mode. The 2-1/2min cycling ones are just stupid and confuse crap for load, the "real" (electronic - optical or conductance) sensing ones get dirty and think they're sensing something, and so on. The float switches are probably the best, with periodic testing. And then, there is the Ultra!

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[MrMoose]

That should be the golden standard of any secondary bilge pump install.
But, I really dislike how much water it takes in the bilge (a lot) for the primary (factory) pump to start pumping.

I think a bilge pump is the one thing I want wired directly to battery (fused), bypassing all the switches. The only problem with that of course is - you need to trust your switch! Unfortunately, some of the switches tend to get stuck in the "on" mode. The 2-1/2min cycling ones are just stupid and confuse crap for load, the "real" (electronic - optical or conductance) sensing ones get dirty and think they're sensing something, and so on. The float switches are probably the best, with periodic testing. And then, there is the Ultra!

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I wish that I could take credit for my install. All I told the Marineland Waco guys is that I wanted a secondary installed about an inch above the factory pump, with a water alarm. That's about the only thing that the dealership seemed to do right when I bought my boat from them. I've tested it twice: hose into the bilge, Yamaha starts pumping, turn batteries off, Yamaha stops pumping, eventually alarm sounds when secondary starts pumping, alarm stops.
The dealer installed the secondary right beside the Yamaha one, in the bottom of the engine compartment. I think that they knew what they were doing.

 

[blacksapphirez]

sort of off topic but if you don't want the water from the deck going in the bilge, seal it up around the fuel and ski locker. 99% will go out the scupper.

 

[bronze_10]

I searched this tread to add something i founf in my boat.. it may have been covered above... i took off my fuel hatch and found it half full if water.. there is a plug between the engin campartment bulkhead and the fuel chamber... it drains the front of the boat in to the bilge. I never knew it was there.. we pulled the plug and water ran out of my boat for a long long time. If your boat has this plug u may want ti check it..