Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

As a community effort we are going to remove a half sunken pontoon boat for a woman on our lake. One log (one side of the boat is completely submerged and has been for some time. It is parked next to her old dock and I have rigged a come along to lift it some out of the water. First attempt was to raise it up enough to slide a pair of the square jetski floats under the back side. These proved to have little affect as the shear weight of a pontoon log full of water is not coming out of the water. Our next attempt will be to drill a hole into the top of the tail end of the log and feed a garden hose attached to a pump down into it and pump out the water. We are hoping the hole we drill is much larger than the existing hole that has caused it to sink. Since it has taken over a year to sink we feel this approach will work. Once the water is pumped out we will install a rubber expander plug into the hole and with the additional floats still under the boat be able to drag it over to the boat launch to a waiting trailer. I also suggested that we remove the submerged motor to lighten the load. Please advise if you think this is a sound approach. Thanks Mark

Sounds good to me! Have fun! Do you get the boat?????????

Your plan could work, as long as your pumping rate outruns the leakage rate - AND you have adequate air coming in as the water pumps out.

Remember that most pontoon tubes (even old ones) are segmented with 2-4 sealed sections. Make sure that you are not just drilling into a section that has no water in it, because it is sealed off.

Marc

1st yes I get the boat.

2nd regarding segments, you are right I am hoping, due to its age, that this one does not have segments. so I will drill on top of the tail end of the log and hope that it's the one. Otherwise I'll drill the next segment.

Keep your fingers crossed. And thanks for the insight.

Mark

I have done this a few times for a friend. We used a bilge pump in the toon that was connected to a battery so it would keep pumping from the dock to the ramp. We did not use any extra flotation or remove the engine. With all the water out of the toon it floated fine. Be sure the flotation will not be in the way of loading it on the trailer.

How about some pictures?

Damn, this sounds like a fun way to spend a day...Love this kind of stuff........as long as its not my boat of course.

Friends that dive and used to help the sheriff pull junk out of the rock quarry and used old, patched truck inner tubes (1000-20 or larger) they'd stuff under water then inflate. Look for a tire store that services commercial truck accounts. That may help get things level with the surface.

Thanks all for your suggestions. We will probably be tackling it tomorrow. I will take photos. I am under the impression that any additional weight like the motor, Saturated seats and batteries would contribute to the buoyancy needed to get it afloat and to the boat dock. We will purge the log of water first and see how it goes.
The tire idea is a good fall back plan. I'll see how the water removal works first.

Mark

Sorry for the delay. Initially the boat was completely submerged on one side with a water line running down the center of the boat. The motor was completely under water. So it was tilting at around 45 degrees.
We moved all the water soaked benches to the good pontoon side of the boat.
I mounted a 4x4 to the side of the dock to get some height for my come-along. Ratcheted it up to where the top of the sunken pontoon could be accessed.
Shoved 2 Jetski float cubes under the tail end. (these had little or no effect)
Drilled a 7/8 inch hole in the top of tail section. Then fed a garden hose down into it. The short hose was attached to an electric pump that pumps 330 gallons of water an hour.
Hooked it up to a small Honda generator and ran the pump. It took 1.5 hours to remove all the water in the pontoon.
The pontoon slowly righted itself and with the help of the 2 Jetski cubes. I marked with my finger the water line as it began to rise. When all the water was out plugged the hole with a rubber lever type expandable plug.
It has remained upright since then. All went as planned.
Next to the boat ramp to a trailer and to be repaired.
Mark

Nice work!!!!!!!!!!

There's a restore project for somebody!

Way to Get er Did

Great waterline!!!!!!!!!!!

Good work there for sure! A gallon of A/C coil cleaner (the pink stuff) and she'll look like new lol.