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Larry Larry is offline
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First recorded activity by BoatBanter: Jul 2006
Posts: 5,275
Default Dumb Q : Barnacle Scraper

"Capt. JG" wrote in
easolutions:

Nothing removes water faster than a guy with a bucket and the proper
motivation. LOL




People are always horrified when they saw my powerboats come out of the
water on the trailer streaming water out of the table tennis drain cocks
I always installed in them. In 40 years I never had a boat sink because
of them being screwed in where the transom plugs I could never remember
to insert before launching were to go.

I met a guy with a better idea at the ramp one day. He said they wanted
to much for these autodraining gadgets. So, he installed a toilet tank
valve seat (without the overflow tube) into his transom over where the
old drain used to go. On the outside of the BIG hole was a standard
flexible rubber toilet flush flapper that fit through the hole as it
should, suspended by the two ears it would sit on inside your toilet
tank. The only difference being the end of these ears had nylon washers
forced over them so the flapper couldn't fly off and get lost while she
was on a plane and the hole was WIDE OPEN to the sea.

If the water wasn't so deep he couldn't start the engine and drive the
nearly-full runabout away from the dock, he said he could empty the hull
in less than 1% the time it would have taken the little hole with the
plug removed. The boat simply.......well............FLUSHED!

Come off the plane, a tiny bit of water splashed into the stern to seat
the flapper and she was ready to fish. Take off again, and whatever was
in the boat....FLUSHED out the back....EVEN THAT CRAP THAT ALWAYS
PLUGGED THE LITTLE PLUG HOLE!

Oh, one slight modification to the flapper. The hollow center of the
tapered part that floats until your toilet tank had emptied before it
dropped to close it had been filled with bathtub caulk to keep it from
floating up and STAYING OPEN, which wouldn't be good. His flapper was
quite heavy with the caulk-filled bullet plug. "It always lays open
when we're underway at any speed", he told me.

To clean the fish crap out of the bilge, you used a stick to hold the
flapper open to "fill" the boat with enough water to wash the deck.
Then, you simply took her for a spin to FLUSH. It looked really clean
to me!

Can you imagine the shame of anyone on a yachtie dock spotting such a
rig out of a toilet. They'd be horrified! Those come from WALMART!