I'm still a new sailor but I'm not bad at all if I may say so. It's my second summer and between my daughter I and we've trailered and sailed dozens of times on all kinds of water. Now with that said we left Dallas for a nice dad and daughter weekend at Canyon Lake here in Texas - hot and clear, and the wind did not cooperate.
1978 DSII, still in decent shape, super dry boat (never more than a drop if any out of the bilge) and lots of fun. We have a fast setup routine and everything is covered and double checked, and always with spare rigging parts and plugs and all safety gear and items.
We headed out no problem, had lots of fun rounding buoys and getting a feel for the lake and wind before we took off across the lake for fun at an island I always take my family to on the houseboat or ski boat, so getting there in light wind was not as fast as I would like
We anchored very shallow, had a ball hanging out and swimming. It was light wind but giant rough water thanks to massive amounts of slow lumbering wake boats and close fly bys by jet skis, so when I saw water in the boat I thought it was just waves. That changed when sponging the water out didn't ever stop. Hopped in, said "what the heck!?" and saw water coming into cubby from the cable hole on the centerboard haul.
Opened an inspection port and was shocked to see water pour into cockpit. closed it up and said “hop in we gotta go now!” The thought was that maybe the giant waves had made us slam into rock close to shore and there may be a crack.
Fired up the kicker and started bailing, pulled the mainsail down and stuffed it in the cuddy and started the run to the ramp - water coming in through cable hole about as fast a weak elementary school water fountain, we were able to bail out at the same speed so we kept on rolling back to ramp as fast as a 2HP Yamaha will push - while pushing the rudder down to full down position, we noticed the bottom plug was gone - great. We had a spare plug, a it was a quick bit of relief thinking that's pretty much the problem and not a crack, the relief was short lived because it was time to get back to the task at hand.
Boat so low now that the stream of water coming from cable hole picked up pace - a nice family came along and offered a tow and we accepted Before the tow we were pretty much lumbering along and bailing, and were very confident that we would have eventually made it to ramp by ourselves, the wake boats that buzzed by paid no attention to a small sail boat low in water and a father and daughter bailing water - so we would have a few big wakes come over the side (sigh) .
Short story even longer, we got to the ramp - cranked it on trailer - my F350 had trouble getting it out (the ramp was steep and wet and I have limited slip) once near the top we pulled the plug, the tires were almost flat and an hour later there was still water coming out - it was 102 degrees and no shade so we used that steady stream of water to keep us wet and cool for a long time
So the question is - why (like my big boats) is there not a screw in plug (brass or plastic) - I'd imagine if I were offshore things could have gotten really hairy, there is NO WAY that a human powered hand pump could get that all that water out without wearing you out, and would take hours.
Second question (really a statement) , once the boat gets low enough in water, water will continuously come in that cable hole into the cockpit
I know now why you guys stuff pool noodles in the bilge! We're gonna do that after it dries out.
It was an adventure, we were actually very proud of ourselves for staying level headed and "Staying Calm and Carrying On", in the end we racked it up to fun because after being a water based family for all these years, we finally got a taste ourselves of what it feels like to fight the water when it wants to come in
This is one sail that we will always remember as dad and daughter -