Ok the reports were not that great, and the weather report was a little snotty.
But I had full tanks of gas, and a new 32 gal bait tank to try out. We I meet up with Bo at the usual time and we were on the water before 8am. The plan was to run out to the 277 and work our way south and head for the Dome’s. We got a ½ scoop of bait (giant deans, & not too many of them). Judging by the bait it was going to be tails or buts.
We mad the run 11 mile offshore in snotty weather and trolled around for nothing for an hour or so. The water was around 67.5F there were some dolphins and not much else. We did see there other guys out there looking. We ran for the Dome’s based on some numbers in my GPS. It ended up taking us to the clam beds (my bad). So we trolled some deans around the kelp for nadda. It was windy and bumpy. Scratch plan two too windy too bumpy! We decided to run up hill and try trolling for butts near the pier. The bait tank was working great, the fill time was just over 8 min. on the inside pump. All of the bait was alive after a rough ride. So we were basing up hill at around 17 knotts getting beat and washed. As we neared the pier I looked back and noted “ the bait tank is gone!”
What the @#$! Actually the swim step and the bait tank was gone! I quickly saved the remaining support. We tided down a hose & shut off the pump. This sucks so we went looking for it, we had not checked since we were at the Clam beds. Luck was with us Bo spots the birds on our tank near the Domes. We managed to tie it too the boat. After the drain is pulled we pulled it on board. Hey we still had some Bait! So great we start back up hill at a slower pace near 14knts. A little later the bilge alarm goes off with a beep. First time ever. We look back and I switch on the manual pump for a min. We move on a few min latter the alarm sound again, I turn on the pump again After a while the alarm turns off, Bo checks and we are pumping saltwater and it is warm. That was the end of our excitement for the day. I check the bilge back at Dana, I did not find any water leaking in.
It did turn out that the swim Step was screwed on! This is a 1985 Skippy so it’s been on the water awhile but who the F@ would just screw a swim step on? One of the holes goes through, just one. It looks like at least two brackets could have been through bolted in there original location.
So the bilge alarm works great.
The bait tank/ plumbing and pump worked great.
The boat handled fine with the extra weigh on the swim step.
The parts are for the most part intack. A little rework , some D@3 bolt and we will be good to go.
The bad news is the boat only got 1.49 MPG (50 mile total) on that trip. That part is going to be harder to fix. The last trip was 8 mile at 2.5 MPG.