I put it off a little too long.
My Stratus 176XL is 14 years old already, looks like it was just yesterday that we received it as a Easter present from my Daughter and Son in Law. It's been a great boat and I have no complaints about it. I just re-powered it with a new 70 four stroke Yamaha from the original 50 two stroke. It's not broke in yet. Yesterday I decided to add some break-in hours on it and maybe try and catch a few.
Just a while back someone on the forum was looking for an answer as to where was water getting into his boat. One of the answers was maybe the hoses going to the live well or other varied hoses in the rear of the boat. I made a mental note of that thinking that I should be checking mine for dry rot hoses and what not. Well I did not check fast enough.
On the way out yesterday we had to idle through a no wake zone of quite some distance. Once cleared, I gave it the throttle and the bow came up but little else. First though was the motor is running perfectly, second pop open the live well to see if it was full. It was dry so that's not the problem. Hmm, hit the bilge pump and voila, water goes flying out. OK, pop open the battery compartment and see a foot of water in the boat. I kept the boat moving forward all the while pumping. The water level finally got low enough for me to see water pouring in from somewhere. On further checking I found that the drain hose going from the live well through the transom was detached at the transom end. OK turn boat around and head towards the landing with bilge pump on. When the bilge pump stopped pumping I popped open the hatch again to see if all the water was gone. Nope the high water in the hull had washed all the trash and loose foam in the hull to the pump and had stopped up the screen. I cleaned that out and was back on my way. Arrived at the launch, picked up the boat and drained the water. What I found to be the problem was the hose clamp holding the hose to the transom connection had rusted and broke allow the hose to pull off. I had no way of doing a quick fix so we were homeward bound.
Getting home I removed all the hoses from the live well and bilge pump. What I found was that all the connections that were made before the installation were stainless steel permanent clamps but the connections made in the boat as it was put together were the screw type hose clamps. The bands of the clamp were stainless but the screw and tightening mechanisms were regular steel. The steel part had rusted and broke allowing the clamps to fail. I replaced all those type of clamps with 100 percent stainless clamps and also replaces the drain hose which was a little short which also allowed it to easily come off. Everything else checked out so now I good to go again.
I write this as a warning to others to check you boat hoses and clamps. If I would have make it to fishing before discovering the problem it could have been a lot worst. A 3/4" hole in a boat fills up fast.
Safe boating to all,
"gene"
I put it off a little too long.
Glad you got through that!
It’s really about time, you all get back to fishing!
Praying and pulling for you all.
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