Champion/Bass Cat/Stratos owners tournament story

[wmitch2]

I was asked to be his partner by my friend, Brian Stendel to head East for the Champion owners tournament this year on Table Rock Lake. As I have always wanted to fish there, I jumped at the chance ! We headed out from Fresno Ca on Tuesday and arrived at the lake Thurs night (1800 mi each way). Launched on Friday morn for a 1/2 day pre-fish. We hit a few places and found a pattern and a couple of baits that worked well. Went to the boat show and then the dinner and silent auction. Each of us won a couple of items and had a good time !
Come Saturday morning and off we go !! Hit our first spot and Brian lands a 3, I land a deuce and then we move to our next spot. Not happening as we plan, but I land another deuce. So back we go to our first spot again. It's pretty windy and rough, add the passing boats and it was a pretty wild ride trying to fish, lol !! I land another keeper and we move about a 100 yrds. The motor is acting funny, and was slow to get on plane. We started to fish and Brian lands our limit fish. HOWEVER, we notice water coming thru the drain hole in the floor......A LOT OF WATER !!! Now we notice the stern is dipping below the water with every wave, we hit the manual bilge pump, but it is no way enough, WE ARE SINKING !! Brian drops the TM, sets it on high and we head for the bank ! It's not looking good for us to make it !! Another Bass boat is coming by and we wave like HELL to get his attention. Luckily he sees that we are in trouble and comes over to us. We explain our predicament and he takes our rope and quickly ties to us and tows us back to the ramp !! We make it and beach the boat on the ramp !!! WHEW !!!! We get the boat back on the trailer and go to the weigh-in (10.39 lbs) about 2 hrs early, but, safe and sound thanks to the team of Mitch and his wife. They left before we could get their full names, but they were our "Heros" for sure, so our deepest thanks to you folks !!! We later found that the fuse for the auto bilge pump was in the wrong slot, so it never came on !!!
All in all, it was a very enjoyable, ( and exciting ) and well run tournament for us California guys. Thanks to our heros, Mitch and wife, the Tournament directors and staff, and also to the Kimberling Resort for a great 2 days !!
I also want to thank Brian for inviting me and for all the EXCITING things we enjoyed (?) !!!

[Lea]

Great post!! And very glad you all are safe! Mitch and wife are super folks, for sure!!!

[Hez]

So....y'all forgot the plug or what?

[Lea]

Read it again, Hez.....

[Hez]

Read it again, Hez.....

I read it again...he doesn't really state exactly what happened with the plug. I get that it was not where it was supposed to be and water was coming in.

The reason I ask, I guess, is because it was just a few months back that I put the plug in and still had the same experience...only I was lazy and didn't bend all the way down and look to see what I was doing and put the plug in the livewell drain hole instead of where it should be.

So I didn't know if this was a similar case or they forgot the plug completely. They went fishing the day before....did they lose it then? Just trying to fill in some minor missing details, that's all.

Unless I am just blatantly missing it in his original post

[vicks]

It was nice meeting you and even with the problems hope you had a great time

[MMosher]

Great meeting you. You had a adventure for sure. Come see us again next year.

[Lea]

Hez, Sorry... you are correct that he didn't say what he had done or not done with the plug. He just said the fuse for the bilge was in the wrong slot... I missed the omission about the plug. I owe you an apology!

Hey. Mitch...where was the water coming from?

[BigMouth]

Hez, it was a combination of factors. Just replaced the manual bilge plug with a remote so everything was fine there. I also rewired all the 12v accessories, pumps, lights, TM, graphs, etc. etc... Everything was tested and good there also.

Just before leaving I changed the Auto-bilge pump fuse, it had a 15A fuse which was just to high so I used a 5A. Unfortunately, the fuse was replaced in the wrong slot. That seems odd as I had changed that single fuse around dozens of times as I tested each system.

or ...

I charged the batteries the night before we left (6-7 y.o. PM1's) and the morning we were supposed to leave noticed that one wasn’t taking a charge. No time to switch it so we did it on the road in Albuquerque at a Sam’s Club. We tested all three batteries and two tested bad, so I purchased three new Duracell G31's. I think during the change out the tech's may have replaced the fuse in the wrong slot.



Anyway, as I said a combination of factors...

1. We assumed the auto-bilge was working. Should have checked it by opening remote bilge plug and wait for pump to come on.

2. During the fishing day I should have hit the manual bilge pump switch as well as lift the lid to check the bilge, so simple!

3. The tube that runs the cables, wires and fuel/oil line from the bilge to the motor was to short and leaked water. (my bad)

4. When we changed position from the docks to the bridge and one piling to another we had a difficult time getting the boat on
plane but it was the last hour or two of tournament so we put off checking the problem.

Combine all this with wind chop, boat wakes and sudden stops off plane and the bilge inevitability filled with water to the point that a 750 gph bilge pump couldn’t keep up and we floundered.

Mitch forgot to memtion that when we tried to start the big motor it wouldn’t turn over, thats why we went to the trolling motor. I think water was ingestion and it seized ifrom our prior move between pilings.


This singular focus on fishing and not boat awarness could have won me a Darwin Award!

[BigMouth]

Some oics...

[MMosher]

Ya get your engine unpickled?

[BigMouth]

Don’t know my boat guy is very busy and since it was three days travel to home the insurance people said it probably wouldn’t do any good. Never heard the term "pickle" when referring to a motor before.

Also don't know how to handle issue of all that water logged foam.

Lost a couple rods and reels, tackle boxes and my prized Yeti coffee cup you see in the pic. Also one soaked Humminbird 10 Mega, sure hope they’re water proof and sliced through the network cable on my Ultrex.

What really PO's me, if they total it, is all the work on the wiring just went down the drain, so to speak.

p.s. The brand new Dobyn's DX 742C rod and a Lews Magnesium reel is light enough to float and could still be on the lake somewhere bobbing around.

[Dan21XRS]

Unless the engine was fully submerged I wouldn't think it should have any problems... Just open all the compartments toss a small fan in the bilge area and leave it in the sun to dry out... Glad everyone made it back to the dock... Dan

[BigMouth]

Thanks Dan, It was upto 2/3rd's submerged. I’m a bit worried about water ingestion through fuel, oil tanks and the ill fitting rigging tube. Not to mention the water logged foam as bilge and lockers are full of it.

[86 inches]

Oh boy. Just saw this. Feel really bad for you. Hopefully things will turn out ok.

This is one of my fears. When I first hung my new motor on my jackplate, the stern sat way lower than with my original motor. I fretted over what to do, worrying about just this sorta thing. Removed the jacklate and its attitude seems to be about the same as before the re-power. In an effort to learn from your misfortune, I don't understand where the water came from. Yeah your bilge pumps weren't working but why did you need them in the first place. My auto bilge rarely kicks on and I seldom have any water in the bilge at the end of the day. Did I miss something here?

[BigMouth]

86 all I can say is maybe, haven’t had a chance to check the hull but I don’t recall water exiting the boat from anywhere but the bilge plug. Of course now it all plugged up with bit's and pieces of foam. We’ll clean it out on Monday and put some water back in to double check the remote bilge plug install. All I can say is that it was a rough day under that bridge, 15 mph wind, 1-2 ft chop with boat wakes and right up against a piling. I was sitting front seat and Mitch was backseating but he didn’t notice anything unusual, until I pointed out that we were sinking.

Here's a better pic of all the foam that came loose . . .



That has me really worried. The research I’ve done, there’s not much, says unless I cut off the top cap and dig all the foam out and replace it I’m stuck with it. Don’t want to haul around that much extra weight, especially if I'm fishing on a rough day!

[86 inches]

I would think that if the foam can get wet it can also dry out. The problems I've seen have been when there was a leak in the transom the communicated with the sealed stringers. No good way for the water to get out. I think the boat will be OK. I'm wondering about the motor. If you didn't have any water in the fuel or oil tanks it should be alright. I don't think fresh water through the rigging tube would hurt it at all.

Oh, btw, "pickling" : salvaging a submerged motor

[86 inches]

Not sure but maybe all that loose foam is just that... loose foam. I would think the stringers would be sealed and safe and any unsealed foam should have plenty of air exposure to allow for drying.

[wmitch2]

I think part of the problem was that the stern sets low in the water to begin with and the bilge locker lid opens back to front is part of the problem. That lid is not "locked" down and as the wakes washed over the back, they actually lifted the lid enough to allow water to slip in. Maybe it could be reversed or maybe locked down to form a watertight seal would be a good suggestion. When we were hit with a wake, it was all we could do to hang on and not be thrown overboard. If the auto-bilge had come on it might have been enough or we would have noticed the problem sooner. There's a lot of ifs and could haves, the good thing is we made it in safe. I'm hoping that the boat is going to be ok. Brian spent a lot of time and $ on it before we left. OH YEAH, he forgot to tell you that when we took it to the lake two days before leaving that we burned a bearing and when pulling the boat out of the water, the wheel FELL OFF !! We were able to chain the axle up to the frame and make it home !! The FUN just kept on coming, lol !!!

[grout-scout]

Ahhh, the ol’ saturated foam potential. Been drying my 198 out for a year now, finally getting it kind of dried and I’ve picked up 4 mph over the year. When you get her all cleaned up and figure out where the water came from; might be a cracked livewell housing or cracked hose. Then take her out and see if you can achieve your same speeds that it used to run. You’ll know if it’s waterlogged or not.

Hopefully they were using closed cell foam back then and not open cell.