My upgrade, the 2800WA Vector by Hydrasports, made its way to 900 feet today. Just short of an awesome weed line. We left the Dolphin Cove Marina at 4:30 (someone was late) attempting to take advantage of nicer ocean. We got lines in 13miles short of 226 Hole around 0730 and BAM bull dolphin right away, but we lost a nice bull at the boat. Then proceeded to put two in the boat, other then the rough sea things were going well at this point. The two sporty’s we were fishing near picked up and were off and running. We decited to follow, seas were a bit rougher but we pushed on. Hearing over the radio that a deeper sporty was covered on a weed line.
On the way we left the high speed troll out and picked up one of the earlier mentioned two at about 14 knots (Black and red islander- naked).
The boat was increasingly having difficulty climbing the waves and that seemed a bit off. NOT good, to make matters worse we then lost the STRB motor. Now running on one motor and still headed to the weed line we began investigating the problem. We found that we were taking on water throught a rear hatch in the transom and the bilge was overflowing (beyond full). At that time we employed all pumps aboard and expelled the water from the bilge (auto did not kick in).
Since this is our Maiden voyage, I took the dual perko switch layout with parallel switch from the previos owner. WRONG. After removing the pannel from the boat gunnel and tracing each 4awg POS power cable we found the problem- A broken 4AWG positive lug from the STRB motor to a Stud in the hull to the perko BANK 1 switch ( the HS has 4 batteries). After stopping the think- Calling the coast gaurd to make them aware that we may need assistance and discussing it with the other boat captains we continued to make repairs. I want to give a GREAT BIG Thank you to those captains for offering the SAT PHONE and to relay messages to the Coast Gaurd.
I found that 70 plus miles out I could reach the Coast gaurd direct (AWESOME that expensive antenna was
Forgot to mention, Thanks to Darrel, JB, Igor and Mike for having the patience to let Darrel and I work through the problems. It was a very trying experience, no complaints from anyone. Just a team effort to get home safe.
And having 300’ of rope and chain in the windlass means nothing in 800-900’ of Water. Gotta rethink going deep, when we could not anchor. Weed lines are just sooooo adictive…
AGAIN Thank you to the Captains East of 226 that assisted us and monitored our progress home via VHF every hour of the trip home.
Thanks for the follow-ups. Please PM me your information- I would like to show my gratitude.
AGAIN Thank you to the Coast Gaurd for support and reponsiveness, It really made the situation feel safe when the pucker factor was high.
and Thanks to the crew… Thanks guys… we will do it again soon.
There is a large rectangular access hatch in the Euro Transom, that will soon be a screwed in circle access hatch.
Hydra Sports put it there to access the macerator pumps for the in cockpit fish boxes. Porblem is when the boat is pitching 6-8 footers stacked up a lot of water goes into that euro transom. In todays case it just stayed full and the hatch (w/ two twist latches) leaks a lot. It most likely was not even water tight when new.
Time for some glass work and/or temporary 5200 sealant.
Good job on the fix and having all the necessary equiptment to fix. Have seen a lot of those and other hatches that leak when water is running across them constantly, espicially the “pop” out round ones, the round screw in ones seem to do a bit better job at staying “watertight” but still leak it seems. A bead of silicone around the hatch before closing the pop out ones seals them pretty good, but can be a pain to get off then. Have not seen a good rectangular hatch that will seal good yet.
Thanks for all the replies, i tested the hatch with with a full bead of silicone inside. Once a full bead was inside and closed i ran a bead outside and let it dry. filled the transom full of water and no leaks. Doesn’t mean won’t leak offshore but its a start. If it does not hold then i will Glass it in…and forget about it…w/o a round hatch at all
