I suppose that anyone that has been around boats long enough has seen
the "missing drainplug" from the water at one time or another.

A friend of mine used to own a boat dealership, _and_ a tunnel boat
race team. One time we made a foursome (my wife, me, his girlfriend,
him) out on the lake for testing of a new motor on the tunnel boat.
For those of you who have never done this, it takes two boats. One
boat holds support crew and a radar gun, while the race driver makes
pass after pass, with adjustments in between. We were using a brand
new Bayliner 21' open bow for the support boat. I was holding the
radar gun and reading off speeds when I noticed my feet were getting
wet!! A quick pull of the ski locker cover showed that the bilge was
already full of water and it was now saturating the carpet.

A guy with 30+ years of wrenching, running, selling, racing, etc. boats
had launched without checking the drain plug ;-)

That made me feel a little better a few years later when I backed my
boat down the ramp into the water, jumped in, and saw the drain plug
sitting on the dash where I'd put it when I cleaned the bilge ;-)
Fortunately, the boat was still on the trailer at the time, so my
puzzled wife quickly figured out what I was gesticulating and yelling
about and pulled it back out of the water. Its amazing how much water
that little hole lets in in a short time.


Don W.

ML OZONE wrote:

Thought I was about to die in a brand new boat 2 months ago

snip...

surface it becomes an illusion worthy of
Blackstone because there is absolutly no reason to doubt that what you
are seeing is a screwed down drainplug unless you touch it firmly.

~~~~ Surfbored ~~~~