Rusty, Once, when I was trailering my boat from California to Missouri, I ran into a thunderstorm of Biblical proportions as we traveled through Kansas. I didn't realize it at the time, but the wind had blown the storage compartment doors open and rain poured into the boat. When I arrived in Missouri, I discovered about 40 gallons of water in the bilge (black hole) and cabin sole. At some previous point, I must have spilled a small amount of oil into the bilge area, because it was now floating on top of the water and had formed a greasy film on everything that the water had touched. With the boat still on the trailer, I first ran a length of tygon tubing into the lowest point of the bilge and siphoned all the water out. I then washed the oil off of all the interior surfaces with a soapy sponge. I had to tie the sponge to a stick to clean the black hole area. I was able to squirm the upper part of my body close enough to reach and see the area from the port side of the interior cabin, although my back still has a Montgomery shaped kink in it. I had never had any water in the bilge area from any sailing activities before or since that thunderstorm incident. I use a light and mirror to check the black hole after every sail, though, just to make sure there's nothing there. After finding oil in the water from the thunderstorm incident, I realized that any spillage of gas or oil in my port storage area would end up in that black hole. I'm pretty careful to not spill gas, but if I did, I sure wouldn't want it to stay down in the black hole very long. There's not very much ventilation, so the fumes would be a hazard. If you do find water in the bilge, you could use any kind of pump to get it out by dropping a flexible hose down the hole. If the boat is on the trailer, a siphon hose would work just as well. Since I've never had water in the bilge from normal activities, I don't think I would bother with foam. Just inspect the area from time to time. I've never been tempted to store anything in the depths of the black hole, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt anything. I wouldn't store anything I had to get to quick, and I would inspect it often, just in case. Bill Rusty Knorr wrote:
Thanks, Tom. Isn't it a bad idea to store ground tackle down there? If there was any water down there the chain would be sitting in water continually, wouldn't it? Has anyone run a hose down there to pump water out? Perhaps a kayak manual bilge pump?
-Rusty