Scary video from boat cleaner! - help me diagnose the leak

MiamiAG

The boat is not connected to water. I don’t think it’s fresh but I forgot to tested today. I will be doing so tomorrow. I don’t see any other thing that could be causing so much water to accumulate forward of the mid Wilshire area.

The sinks or bathroom shower have not been used in over three weeks perhaps more. Sure it’s rained a lot and I know that the anchor well can allow water to see Ben, but that’s a lot of water even for a week of South Florida rain showers.

Aqua_Aura

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J3ff

At this point I think you had a BUNCH of water in it, so that might not be a good way to source where it's coming from.... I'd keep looking... when I was trying to find my leak I took some advice I saw here and took towels and put them all around where I thought it might be coming from, then checked every 15 mins... it at least made it easy to tell what area it was coming from... the nightmare continued from there. 

skennelly

@MiamiAG - what are you doing to clean the cabin?  It was under water?  Mold city.

Cableguy Greg

Check the drain in the anchor locker to see if is clogged. If it is, the water could overflow into the hold for the line. There are drains in that area, but if they are clogged the only place for the water to go is the bilge. I don’t recall there being a direct shot from the anchor locker to the mid bilge, but I could be wrong. 

MiamiAG

skennelly said:

@MiamiAG - what are you doing to clean the cabin?  It was under water?  Mold city.

No mold that I can see so far. The water was vacuumed up and the carpet dried. I have the AC running 100% of the time now with the dehumidifier.

The only thing that was wet was the carpet. Had about 2 inches of water.

MiamiAG

Cableguy Greg said:

Check the drain in the anchor locker to see if is clogged. If it is, the water could overflow into the hold for the line. There are drains in that area, but if they are clogged the only place for the water to go is the bilge. I don’t recall there being a direct shot from the anchor locker to the mid bilge, but I could be wrong. 

Thanks, Greg. I will check the drain. I assume blasting it with a hose should clear it.

Aqua_Aura

I was thinking about the drain since mine clogs occasionally and I use a waterhwater to blow it out. I forgot about if it fills it will go into the anchor locker then to the mid bilge I believe. 

212rowboat

y'all are debating where the water came from, and i guess that a good discussion...... but not until the reason/cause for the standing water is resolved... 

.... figure out why and how the bilge pump didn't do it's thing.  that is every bit as important to this as where it came from is.   

Aqua_Aura

His battery charger got turned off and the batteries were drained. 

Lake_Bum

I would FREAK if my boat was leaking that much, that fast!  I can be on the lake for 5 days, and drain less than a cup of water out the drain plug.  And I'd say that is from dripping off swimmers and skiers/wakeboarders.    

That is a LOT of water, with or without A/C. 

rasbury

I'm with you lake..transom seal leak, o ring on that account strainer..thru hull..that is major water and could not leave it in the water unresolved...

MiamiAG

Hey thanks, guys. I don't have a choice but to leave it in the water for now. And, I did freak, for sure.

I am still working my way through possible culprits and ruling them out. No leaking in the transom. I replaced and resealed all of that a couple of years ago due to a leak.

The AC was just replaced with a new pump, hose and strainer. I checked to make sure the strainer O ring was set correctly and not pinched or otherwise leaking. No leaking from new pump. No leaking from the AC.

The boat is not connected to freshwater. The freshwater tank is marked and is not draining so it isn't a leak from the freshwater tank. Besides, that would likely go into the aft bilge, not the mid bilge.

I closed the toilet and AC seacocks and put towels around each to see if they would leak. No leak. I ran a paper towel as best I could over the hoses to see if any were cracked or if the clamps were gone allowing a leak. Negative on seacocks leaking.

So, at the moment, the possible culprits are:

• AC evaporation into shower box that overflows because the float switch on that pump is bad. The box was filled to the top in 2-3 hours. This could spill into the mid bilge and, without power to the pump there, it could fill and spill onto the cabin carpet.
• Bow thruster thru hull shows some signs of moisture. Could there be a leak that I can't see? This could explain why there is water coming from the bow. However, I didn't taste salt water when I, unfortunately, had to taste it.
• Clogged anchor drain and rain water is overflowing and going into the mid bilge. It did rain torrentially for a couple of weeks and it is freshwater. I need to see if the drain is clogged. If it is, perhaps the AC plus the rain water could explain the amount of water seen.

Once this pesky hurricane leaves and if my boat isn't underwater, I will continue to see how to narrow it down.

Thanks to all of you for your thoughtful help and suggestions. This forum is such a valuable asset to the boating community and, especially, the soon-to-be collectible Rinkers.

J3ff

Your bow thruster pic really didn't show what looked like water. 

I'd say AC evaporation could probably put that much water in there in 3 weeks... but Anchor drain sounds good to. Go throw a hose in the anchor area and see what happens? 

Aqua_Aura

Yeah anchor drain will be an easy one to diagnose.