His, Hers, & Ours Sailboats

We have 3 sailboats, his, hers, and ours. The ours is on a trailer, but the his and hers are in the water. We sail on the his and I get to work on the hers. Her boat is too large to easily sail on the river so it stays at the dock more than my 21’er.

After a stormy 3 days I was cleaning the boats of leaves and stuff and found that one of the deck drains on the her boat was running slow, then it stopped draining. I figured it should be an easy fix. I started by trying to clear the clog from the through hull that was just above the water line. From the Kayaks I tried pushing a long nylon wire tie in the hole. I got a little crud out but there was a 90 degree seacock on the inside of the hull and the wire tie would not turn the bend.

Next I emptied out the storage locker and wiggled in and opened and closed the seacock a number of times to see if it would free up the drain. No luck. Next I figured I would take off the hose, but that would let all the water on the deck drain into the boat.

Wet-dry vac cleared the standing water and I tried to remove the top drain. I found the top bronze fitting was a 90 degree that was screwed to the deck with the drain hose attached. The hose was not long enough to come out the top to be disconnected. So back in the locker I went. No room to get to the top hose clamps at the top. The bottom of the hose went in to the seacock and you could get to that.  I took the clamps off but the hose would not come off the fitting. After 20 minutes I got it off and was able to clean out the sludge. 

After I put it back together and checked it I was well sweated out. I finished cleaning her boat, putting away the tools and sat down for a cold ice tea. This little “easy job” had only taken about an hour and a half. It is always the little easy jobs that are so time consuming. And these easy jobs are always on the Her boat.  The his boat easy jobs are always much easier. I wonder why that is?   8-)