Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

We just got the boat home. As I am backing it into the garage, I have to unhook it from my tow vehicle to maneuver it into place. As I am manually pushing the boat into place and swinging the front around, I am hearing water slosh inside the center tube up in the front. The middle of the tube has a ski storage area with a bilge pump. However, there is no water in this area. I do know the gas tank is situated in the rear of the center tube. The boat dealer has ran the boat in their private lake several times to test. Please tell me this is normal or do I have a problem where water is getting into the tube where it's not supposed to be?

The center toon has a bilge pump in the center of it in the ski storage are. I wonder if the center tube is not 100% sealed from back to front? Tomorrow going to put boat on hill to see if water runs to the back. Just curious if anyone else ever had this issue.

My toon has plugs in the back that I removed and put in a Schrader (tire) valve and pressurized it (DO NOT PRESSURIZE OVER 5 PSI). I then but dish soap and water in a spray bottle and sprayed my toons. It produced very large bubbles very quickly which I marked and took to the welder for repairs. I made a siphon hose out of my old fuel line so it had a squeeze ball to get started draining the toons.
Shrader valve with pipe threads can be found in the well section at a hardware or home improvement store.

So here's the deal. I connected a shredder valve to the bung on top the nose cone. I used a bicycle pump to see if the tube holds air. Turns out it does not hold a lick of air. In fact, the air is escaping into the center ski storage. You can hear the air as if it were one open unit, even though I can see a divider. Water is also coming through the cracks around the circumference of the divider. If anyone has an aqua patio with the triple tube setup, I'd like to hear from you. I want to think that this is perfectly normal since the there is a bilge in the center tube.

So the dividers in the tubes I am referring to are actually the bulkheads. Word is, the bulkheads in these tubes are not water tight. I thought they were to prevent the boat from sinking in the even the tube was ruptured. I'm confused.

The bulkheads on some brands of toons are sealed around the top, but have a small opening at the bottom. Not sure if this is what you are looking at or not. The openings are there to allow any leaked water to flow to the rear for draining. You would have to check with the MFGR to see if this applies to you boat.

Glenn

If it were me, I would take it back to the dealer.

The water needs to be able to get out if it can get in. If the center tube (fore and aft of the storage area) is not under pressure, then at the very least, the storage area needs to be isolated from the rest of the tube via welds/sealant.

If the design is for it not to be sealed then there needs to be some type of drainage passage between sections of the tube so your bilge pump can do its' job and keep the water out of all sections of the tube.

If your bilge was working and you still heard water in the tubes then something seems wrong. On the other hand, a bilge pump will never get all the water out.

Let us know what you find out as I am curious.

The Bulkheads, baffles or what ever you want to call them are not air/water tight according to Godfrey. This is to allow the water to move between sections. At any rate, we took boat out to the lake today and it didn't sink. So we are happy. I have always owned and rode/drove v hull fiberglass boats. In fact, we still own a 1993 Master Craft Ski boat. I have not brought myself to selling it. I've had 23 years with that boat. The stability/ride of the Aqua Patio and with a 250 Yamaha SHO, it will easily out run the '93.