Ballast Water Leaking into Bilge

[wgshaw]

Over the past season, I noticed some water showing up in the bilge and some water being lost from the ballast tank. I did a dye test of the ballast water and found the ballast water was indeed leaking into the bilge which was being discharged by the bilge pump that is located slight to the port side and mid-ship and very close to the depth sounder. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to evaluate and fix this condition?

Billy

[Russ]

Wow! I've never heard of ballast leaking. However, if you did a dye test, that's how to determine if it is.

I guess the next step is to trace the dye and see WHERE it's coming in exactly. Can you see a trail of colored water from someplace?
If the bilge pump is kicking on, it must be a substantial amount of water. I would think it should leave some trail.

Really curious what you learn here as this is highly unusual.

--Russ

[Spector]

We developed a leak from our ballast after trailering to the coast and hitting some rough bridge repair work. Bugger of a place to get to. About 4 boat bucks to get it fixed.

After

[Spector]

The crack was right by the galley/battery box area but the water was going under the floor and pooling on the starboard side. There are fibreglass reinforcement channels formed over foam that made finding it very difficult.

[Ixneigh]

They did a nice job cosmetically finishing that. Do you have pics of the actual repair? Is it a design flaw or a manufacturing defect? The ballast tanks in these boats a supposed to be the strongest parts

[Spector]

This is the only shot I have of the repair, which they said was really quite straight forward once they found it. I don't believe it was a manufacturing defect. We hit a couple of poorly marked pavement transitions that slammed us pretty good. I'm pretty sure that's what did it. We are on an M aluminum trailer with long bunks. it had 2 bunks, it now has 4

[wgshaw]

Russ and Spectre.

Thanks for the reply regarding the ballast tank leak. I was thinking about insterting a fibre optic camera to view the inside of the tank. I will keep the forum posted.

Billy