Bilge water / poor scupper arrangement

Dory-Ling

New member
Don't get me wrong, ve love that boat but we have sure had to re do plenty of things on er.
For some times ve have noticed 3 to 4 gallon of water in the bilge after a 3 to5 day trip. Finally getting off my arse and envestagating I found the following. Scupper ports are not even close to the same hight. One is 7/8 inch higher than the other one, causing me to effectivly have only one scupper. ( based on water line) Port is also 1/2 inch higher than the recess which always leaves lots of water in this area. Scuppers are of very poor quality to begin with and applied directly to the back of 14 degree transom they want to hang open all the time, further causing the problem.

Now for the good news and fix. After rasping everything to bare wood / glass I discover that when floor of back deck is put in it only comes CLOSE to transom, so factory just fills void (3/4 inch) with silicone. Well, in times it pulls apart or never had good seal in the begining.
After sealing all and bridging gap with 3 layers on 6 oz cloth and rosin, ve then used brass 1 1/2 sink drain pipe cut to fill in hole well and sealed all with Marine tex. Now it is solid and no mess to clean any more too.

Oh yea, the scuppers! Skifkits in Anchorage Ak (maker of Tolman skiffs) sells a wonderful scupper complete with angled mount block which now lets rubber thingy hang square to earth. They said their rubber would also work better in cold water than factory c-dory flapper. Heading out Monday and expecting better things!
Martin
 
I always have water in my bilge. Gallons. It's more an issue of the wet spring here (rain) than water from actually using the boat on The Sound. The hatches leak: period. A bad design but repairing them would mean new aluminum hatches=money and work. I just put up with it and make sure my bilge pump is working. It's a mildew factory under there.
 
On my 2005 after about 5 days I have a gallon or so in the bilge, not enough for the bilge pump to come on. All of it seems to be coming through the hatches. The scuppers aren't real good, but for the most part they are above waterline and I haven't had an issue of water running into them. I've toyed with new hatches, but haven't been real serious.

My question, how did you get to the back where the deck joins the transom?
 
This is on a 25ft boat and access was gained by shinnining under the splash well to work. (Mostly my arms). Today I set boat at it's rest posture on trailer and washed everything, scuppers appear to work well. Will get first hand experience Tuesday morning!
Martin
 
This fixed the problem. After 4 days and plenty of hosing off salmon blood during that time, there was only 1 qt. of so of water in bilge upon return.
Martin
 
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