Stuffed the Bow 3x in a row big time - raised some concerns

[AZ_AR195]

Hey everyone - So as stated above my family and i had an occurrence on the lake last weekend. After changing my shorts from this near swamping i started thinking about redundancy systems especially for the bilge pump and electrical.

Here's the story;

As read in other posts i know the boat is compartmentalized with plugs in the ski locker, engine compartment and rear drain plugs. I always boat with all plugs closed while in the water and open all plugs once out of the water as recommended by yamaha. during my "occurrence" water filled the anchor locker and ski locker ( they are 1 continuous cavity ) then through open seams under the floor, water filled the gas tank compartment. The bow was about 4" above water line and the stern was pretty much close to being fully out of the water. Long story short the bilge was overwhelmed but with our bucket brigade helping, we saved the boat with no damage ( except to ego and 1 cell phone ).

so here's my thought - please give your opinions;

I believe the stock Bilge pump is an automatically activated 1000gph pump - So Should i add a second pump of equal size in the ski locker and plumb the egress port into the existing line or make the second pump independent utilizing a flexible hose that can be thrown over the gunnel if use is needed. The independent option would utilize a larger pump, say a 2500gph pump. 3rd option is to upgrade the current pump to say a 4000gph to really move some water if needed. Bilge pumps are cheap, boats are not.

Battery protection - From factory the battery is exposed - adding a quality water tight battery box to prevent shorting thus allowing pumps to run as long as they possibly can.

Obviously avoiding being stuffed like a turkey is the best option but the lakes here in AZ get suuuuper busy in summer and the power boats love to zip by us tiny bow riders. So im thinking better safe than sinking! Thanks folks!

 

[Farny]

Hey everyone - So as stated above my family and i had an occurrence on the lake last weekend. After changing my shorts from this near swamping i started thinking about redundancy systems especially for the bilge pump and electrical.

Here's the story;

As read in other posts i know the boat is compartmentalized with plugs in the ski locker, engine compartment and rear drain plugs. I always boat with all plugs closed while in the water and open all plugs once out of the water as recommended by yamaha. during my "occurrence" water filled the anchor locker and ski locker ( they are 1 continuous cavity ) then through open seams under the floor, water filled the gas tank compartment. The bow was about 4" above water line and the stern was pretty much close to being fully out of the water. Long story short the bilge was overwhelmed but with our bucket brigade helping, we saved the boat with no damage ( except to ego and 1 cell phone ).

so here's my thought - please give your opinions;

I believe the stock Bilge pump is an automatically activated 1000gph pump - So Should i add a second pump of equal size in the ski locker and plumb the egress port into the existing line or make the second pump independent utilizing a flexible hose that can be thrown over the gunnel if use is needed. The independent option would utilize a larger pump, say a 2500gph pump. 3rd option is to upgrade the current pump to say a 4000gph to really move some water if needed. Bilge pumps are cheap, boats are not.

Battery protection - From factory the battery is exposed - adding a quality water tight battery box to prevent shorting thus allowing pumps to run as long as they possibly can.

Obviously avoiding being stuffed like a turkey is the best option but the lakes here in AZ get suuuuper busy in summer and the power boats love to zip by us tiny bow riders. So im thinking better safe than sinking! Thanks folks!

Ouch! Not an expert on this stuff but I can’t see where a bigger better bilge would hurt! Would think a second bilge in the engine compartment or under the swim deck near exhaust would work. More GPH the better IMO.

getting swamped - That’s always a fear of mine when the admiral is at the helm. She often tries to take on big waves head on. Tried to advise her to go 45deg and keep the bow up, but she doesn’t much like constructive criticism. And is now famous on the boat for dunking the girls riding in the bow.

another solution - maybe we buy a bigger boat ?

 

[adrianp89]

I’m going to be the a-hole here, but the solution is to not put your self in these situations and if you are, learn to keep the bow up and time it.

 

[AZMark]

Power boats? What lake? Pleasant?

I mostly see surf boats out in the east valley. Even in a 21’ I really have to watch it on summer days. The things you’re talking about seem a little overkill since we don’t really have unexpected weather issues here.

 

[Farny]

I’m going to be the a-hole here, but the solution is to not put your self in these situations and if you are, learn to keep the bow up and time it.

12-17mph seems the best speed in the 19s for now up

 

[Dough]

 

[AZ_AR195]

Ouch! Not an expert on this stuff but I can’t see where a bigger better bilge would hurt! Would think a second bilge in the engine compartment or under the swim deck near exhaust would work. More GPH the better IMO.

getting swamped - That’s always a fear of mine when the admiral is at the helm. She often tries to take on big waves head on. Tried to advise her to go 45deg and keep the bow up, but she doesn’t much like constructive criticism. And is now famous on the boat for dunking the girls riding in the bow.

another solution - maybe we buy a bigger boat ?

wish i could afford a 275! Thanks for your reply!

 

[AZ_AR195]

I’m going to be the a-hole here, but the solution is to not put your self in these situations and if you are, learn to keep the bow up and time it.

In this situation due to heavy lake traffic we had no open exits available at the time - jet skis were swarming this boat jumping its wake on both sides of us. I do agree tho - avoidance of the situation would have been optimal!

 

[AZ_AR195]

Power boats? What lake? Pleasant?

I mostly see surf boats out in the east valley. Even in a 21’ I really have to watch it on summer days. The things you’re talking about seem a little overkill since we don’t really have unexpected weather issues here.

Yes, Lake Pleasant. As you stated it is typically surf boats but this was a twin engine monster cruising out of humbug. If you recall we had our 1st monsoon storm last saturday that rolled in - so the combination of the powerboat and semi-larger swells ( wind driven ) really tossed us around. It prob is overkill but for $100 bucks in parts the redundancy option is looking good for piece of mind. I mean it must of looked scary from the outside as well, we had 2 other boats circling us just incase things went bloop bloop bloop.

 

[zipper]

You mentioned family in your post. How many family and where were they sitting? In those conditions where you could stuff the bow it would be better to have that family weight aft, not forward. Once you have motered out of those conditions, you can shift the weight forward.

 

[AZ_AR195]

You mentioned family in your post. How many family and where were they sitting? In those conditions where you could stuff the bow it would be better to have that family weight aft, not forward. Once you have motered out of those conditions, you can shiftr the weight forward.

2 adults, 3 kids - 2 kids were in the bow , wife and 3rd kid in the rear seats - first thing we did was move everyone to the rear, i powered the boat slowly fwd ( maybe 3-5 mph ) and away from swells so transom was getting hit by waves first. this was followed by wife and i emptying the ski locker and scooping out the water from the helm area seating keeping all weight as far back as possible. after the water from the locker was 90% empty i was able to get the boat to 10mph max until the bilge pumped out the rest. After about 15 mins the boat was able to go full speed as the water weight disappeared.

 

[Crob83]

I will not allow anybody in the bow on my 19 if the conditions are rough on the lake

 

[sunbyrned]

Yikes! Bow was 4” above the water?! I’ve used my Tsunami wake surf bag portable pump before to get rid of excess water. That’s my back up. It worked great.

 

[Farny]

Hey everyone - So as stated above my family and i had an occurrence on the lake last weekend. After changing my shorts from this near swamping i started thinking about redundancy systems especially for the bilge pump and electrical.

Here's the story;

As read in other posts i know the boat is compartmentalized with plugs in the ski locker, engine compartment and rear drain plugs. I always boat with all plugs closed while in the water and open all plugs once out of the water as recommended by yamaha. during my "occurrence" water filled the anchor locker and ski locker ( they are 1 continuous cavity ) then through open seams under the floor, water filled the gas tank compartment. The bow was about 4" above water line and the stern was pretty much close to being fully out of the water. Long story short the bilge was overwhelmed but with our bucket brigade helping, we saved the boat with no damage ( except to ego and 1 cell phone ).

so here's my thought - please give your opinions;

I believe the stock Bilge pump is an automatically activated 1000gph pump - So Should i add a second pump of equal size in the ski locker and plumb the egress port into the existing line or make the second pump independent utilizing a flexible hose that can be thrown over the gunnel if use is needed. The independent option would utilize a larger pump, say a 2500gph pump. 3rd option is to upgrade the current pump to say a 4000gph to really move some water if needed. Bilge pumps are cheap, boats are not.

Battery protection - From factory the battery is exposed - adding a quality water tight battery box to prevent shorting thus allowing pumps to run as long as they possibly can.

Obviously avoiding being stuffed like a turkey is the best option but the lakes here in AZ get suuuuper busy in summer and the power boats love to zip by us tiny bow riders. So im thinking better safe than sinking! Thanks folks!

Could have been worse -

. Not sure a bilge would have helped these folks

 

[AZ_AR195]

Could have been worse -

. Not sure a bilge would have helped these folks

definitely wasn't that bad - small boat at Haulover = disaster

 

[jocolo21]

water in sky locker will not drain if the plugs are in therefore trapping the water and weighing your bow, if the sky locker would of been open it would of drained to the bilge, 10 years and my 3rd yamaha , i ve never used the plugs and never had an issue and i go out in the ocean alot even the Bahamas. yes install a 2 bilge, but not in the engine compartment the back and low that way as you keep motoring that water moves aft and the bilge keeps on pumping.

 

[HangOutdoors]

I always keep the plugs out as well, want the water moving out toward the stern. I boat in the great lakes and it can get rough very quickly.

 

[RiverRat]

Sounds like you had a lot of water in the boat, one thing to remember is to try and get the bow up as quickly as possible. Try and get as much water off the deck through the scupper as you can.

 

[Farny]

water in sky locker will not drain if the plugs are in therefore trapping the water and weighing your bow, if the sky locker would of been open it would of drained to the bilge, 10 years and my 3rd yamaha , i ve never used the plugs and never had an issue and i go out in the ocean alot even the Bahamas. yes install a 2 bilge, but not in the engine compartment the back and low that way as you keep motoring that water moves aft and the bilge keeps on pumping.

This leads me to another thought. Instead of a ski locker ballast, just close the plug and run the tsunami to the ski locker & fill and drain ??

 

[Jim_in_Delaware]

definitely wasn't that bad - small boat at Haulover = disaster

I've seen a lot of the Haulover videos and there are some times when you can safely boat this area in a small boat. There was a number of bad decisions made be the captain of this boat leading to the sinking of this boat. The first being too many people on the boat for these conditions. Just because a boat says 10 people of 2,000 lbs (or whatever the actual number in this case) doesn't mean one should have so many people in the boat in these conditions.

Glad to hear that in your case everything worked out okay. Hopefully we all learn from bad conditions and/or our mistakes and this will make you a better captain.

Jim