Grenada - That Sinking Feeling

[Kevin's Post] Ever since we moved aboard the boat (with everything we own) the boat rides a little bit lower in the water than it ought to. The bottom paint was painted based on a fairly lightly loaded boat and now that the boat is heavier, the bottom paint doesn't even extend above the waterline at the bows. This is bad because stuff grows really fast on the bare fiberglass if it is underwater. I've watched the bows get lower and lower and at this point I would estimate the bows are about 5 inches lower than when we bought the boat while the stern is about 1 inch lower. A while back somebody mentioned to me that I should check for water trapped under the floors of the forward lockers. The front 8' of each hull is a huge locker with a fiberglass floor about a foot above the waterline. Under the floor is a big dead space and one of few places on our boat that you can't stick your head in and look around. I asked them how it would be possible to check for water and they said to use the inspection port. Hmmmm. Our boat doesn't have an inspection port. Apparently newer Mantas have an inspection port because the older boats (like ours) had a tendency to accumulate water under the floor. So I contacted Manta and they said that on our boat that whole dead space was filled with foam for floatation, and that yes it is possible for water to get in there. I figured that with the foam there was no way for enough water to get in there to effect the waterline and decided not to worry about it. That was about 9 months ago.

Now we are trying to plan our next haulout and one of the things we are considering doing is raising the painted waterline. Before we resort to that, I thought it would be prudent to finally check for water under the forward locker floors. So yesterday I got out a hole saw and cut a 2" hole in the floor of the locker exposing the foam. Sure enough the foam was damp. Eureka! I scraped out as much of the foam as I could with a screw driver and the foam was getting wetter the deeper I went. I had about 3 feet of foam below me and a screwdriver wasn't going to get the job done. So I attached the hole saw bit to the end of a pole and started working my way down through the foam (do you see where this is going yet?). Now I wasn't using a drill or anything (I'm not completely crazy) I was just twisting the pole with the hole saw bit and pulling up a little chunk of foam at a time. After about 2 hours of this I knew I was getting close to the bottom when all of a sudden, whoosh! The hole floods with water. Uh-Oh. (Not my exact words). I went inside and told Amanda that I had just cut a hole through the bottom of the boat. She thought I was joking, but then she freaked out when she realized I was serious. Let me just stop for a minute and explain that the forward locker has a watertight bulkhead between it and the rest of the boat, so I could cut holes in the bottom of the bow all day long, there would be no danger of sinking. I put on my mask and snorkel and jumped in the murky water to inspect the damage. I searched the whole bow for a hole but couldn't find one given the limited visibility. Back out of the water, we grabbed a hand pump and start pumping the water out to see how fast water was coming in. After pumping 20-30 gallons out, the water level in the hole was dropping. We watched the hole expectantly waiting for the water level to come back up. It didn't. I looked over the side at the waterline, "Uh, I think the bow is higher". Living on the boat for 2 years I have learned a few things about seamanship: 1) The water is supposed to be on the outside of the boat, and 2) sinking boats go down not up. Amanda took over pumping and pumped until it was dry. We excitedly jumped to the dock so we could see the bows from a better vantage. Sure enough, the port bow was at least 3 inches higher with all the water pumped out. Apparently for 2 years we have been carrying around several hundred pounds of water in our port bow. I am sure there is an equivalent amount in the starboard bow, so my next project is going to be performing the same surgery there. Verrry carefully.