Question about water in the flotation compartment and drain

[strizzzo]

Howdy all,

pleased to recently acquire a DS II...at least i think it is (hull# XDY10781M811 - D ). She's been sitting a while and I've begun cleaning and overhauling. Of particular concern, I found a good deal of water in the main flotation compartments accessed by the 4" view holes. The seals around those holes are rather shot, and the boat sat for years with inches of water and debris accumulated in the cockpit and unable to drain through the cockpit drain, so i suppose it's possible the water leaked down into the compartment below.

The issue is that i was unable to rain it from there naturally. There seem to be three drains at the rear...one in the bottom of the cockpit (self bailer?) one in rear transom nearly at the bottom and one in the rear transom a few inches higher. The higher up is obviously a drain from the cockpit, so i assume that the lower is the bilge drain for the main flotation compartment.

Any idea why this bilge drain would refuse to drain accumulated water? I tried to gently ream it with little sucess. perhaps Styrofoam flotation or some such has clogged it over the years of sitting? Wound up getting most of the water out through old fashioned siphon, but certainly would feel better about trying to float her if I could see a dry compartment and then check for moisture there after.

Thanks for any and all assistance.

[bfvsforever]

The lower hole near the keel is the drain for the bilge area, something is plugging your drain, when I aquired my DS II I pulled the lower plug and years of accumulated rain water gushed out. The bilge was completely filled and has caused damage to the port side stringers and the bottom of the hull itself, next weekend I am going up to Mass. for my daughter's college graduation and plan to stop in and see Rudy at D&R Marine and discuss the repair I have in mind to repair the port side that is now concave rather than convex and strengthen the hull with out having to cut the entire floor out on the port side to access the stringers. It should also stop the "oil canning effect" of the bottom in a chop. I hope (pray) that it will work.