Air Dock Saved My Boat

F

Flutterby

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Jul 14, 2004
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14378
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I store my boat on bladders filled with air to protect the outdrive and keep the bottom clean. One time I lowered my boat into the water and began washing it. [th] [:-banghead]

As I was doing this I noticed the bilge pump kept cycling on. Well, perhaps I got water in the bilge.....As I was drying the boat, the pump continued to cycle on. Hmmmmmmm. So I open the hatch and sure enough, I've got water coming in the bilge. My bellows was leaking, and it was Friday night; too late to get the boat hauled. So I pumped up the Air Dock enough to stop the leaking, but I was still able to climb onboard to spend the night.

If my boat had been in the water, my boat may have sunk! This alone was worth the price of the Air Dock.
 
I had a customers boat sink because of a partial failure in an Air Dock recently. The aft end settled into the water with the forward end held high. The water flooded into the engine hatch. It was a 2002 25' Bayliner. Something to think about.
 
I can see how would that would happen........I've had my bow bladder fail before, but never either of the side bladders. And I'm fortunate that my harbormaster and/or neighbors will adjust my air dock if it gets out of wack when I'm gone. Too bad your customer didn't have someone to at least give him a heads up that there was a problem.......
 
Occasionally my bow bladder will lose air while I'm gone during the week [vapor lock?]. It has something to do with warm weather---never happens in the winter or spring. I usually do not fill it as full of air in the summer to compensate. But it the bow goes down, my outdrive is still out of the water......no biggie really. BTW---this bladder gets the late afternoon sun during the summer......
 
Close call, Flutter!

Whose Drive do you have and Which Bellows was it?

I know you'd replace all of them once it's apart but those MerC shift bellows seem to cause more than their share of the leaks...
 
I've had bellows leak just the once in fifteen years. I have no idea which it was.....the boatyard took care of it! Tis a Merc 4.3L Alpha 1 Gen 2. Typical of what was being sold in 1991 on small boats.
 
glad you caught it...

not really typical... Volvos were around back then and will not sink the boat if the bellow fails...
 
Well the water was coming in at a good pace. About at the rate of a dock water hose. I'm sure the battery would have gotten pooped out before the weekend when I would have gotten there......... Even if the bilge had filled up, a deflated air dock would have kept the boat at the surface.....
 
Just wondered, sounds like a bigger leak than ours was with a shift bellows failure. Ours was more of a steady trickle. How old were the bellows? Anything else damaged by the water?
 
Well, I had to have the engine rebuilt 4 years prior. I believe they replaced the bellows then. The bilge pump kept the water level low and nothing else was damaged by the water.
 
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