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Stuart
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| Joined: | Wed Oct 26th, 2005 |
| Location: | Tempe, Arizona USA |
| Posts: | 444 |
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Posted: Tue Nov 1st, 2005 03:40 pm |
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I spent last weekend replacing a thru-hull fitting on my boat that had literally corroded apart, then broke loose, allowing water to flood into the back of my right sponson. To top it off, the float switches on my starboard bilge pumps had stopped working as well. I noticed the problem two weeks ago when fishing about 35 miles out of Puerto Penasco when I went down into the cabin and had about 6 inches of water in my starboard sponson. 
Talk about panic! The bilge pumps worked fine when I turned them on manually (I always check them before going out) and quickly pumped out the water, so we weren't in any real danger. Let's just say I had that "sinking" feeling in my stomach.
In the course of repairing the situation, I discovered that a ground wire that connects to the bronze thru-hull fitting had broken off at some point (or maybe never was connected properly). Electrolysis had completely corroded the inside of the mushroom fitting that goes thru the hull. Once the mushroom fitting broke off, the bronze seacock portion on the inside of the sponson had nothing holding it in place and came loose, leaving about a one-inch hole for water to freely flow into the back of the boat. Replaced all of that and rewired the ground. Also, was able to wire trace the bilge pumps and found an inline 7.5 amp fuse that had blown. That's the brown/red line that provides power to the pumps when the float switches activate.
I only mention this here as a caution to others. My boat is not that old (2002 ProKat) and I'm anal about maintaining it. You just don't expect solid metal fittings to fall apart like that, but there's saltwater at work for you! Even though I regularly inspect the seacocks and make certain they all work, this is a problem I never saw coming. I'll be adding an inspection of all my thru-hull fittings/grounding to my maintenance checklist!
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Catch-22
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Posted: Tue Nov 1st, 2005 09:33 pm |
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Stuart- wanted to let you know we caught one of our Marlin in Cabo on one of your orange and brown lures,Keep up the good work
I have had a Salt water boat for the past ten years ,man I mean to tell you the words, salt & water do not go well with any thing add the word pump to the sentence and its all over..Its amazing how your boat can work perfect when you park it on Sunday, then come back a week later and have 5 things no longer working??I trully belive your boat is better off running every day than just sitting there..I guess the moral to the story is fish every day Ya HOOOO
Steve
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Stuart
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| Joined: | Wed Oct 26th, 2005 |
| Location: | Tempe, Arizona USA |
| Posts: | 444 |
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Posted: Tue Nov 1st, 2005 10:01 pm |
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Steve - Glad to hear that petrolero lure did the job for you! I guess I can add "Took a marlin in the Bisbee's Tournament" to my nearly non-existent marketing materials! 
All kidding aside, that truly is exciting to hear! Those six-pipe jetheads are awesome lures and have been moving well. I have another style jethead that is a large four-pipe bullet shape that you can troll pretty fast. Also good to hear my rigging held up, too!
I've had at least two friends wives call me in the past month to buy lures for their husbands, one for his birthday, the other for their anniversary. Here I thought I was targeting the right market (fishermen) when all along I should be targeting their wives. "Stumped about what to give the hubby this year? You know he'll be happy with Dulcecita Lures!"
Thanks for sharing that with me. And oh, on the boat/salt thing -- mine sits on a trailer here in Arizona most of the time. I'd hate to think about how much I'd have to work on it if it sat in the water all the time!
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