Boating Safety – High Water Alarm
If you don’t have a high water alarm installed in your vessel GET ONE! Your life is worth more the the $70 dollars the unit costs. You just never know when the right combination of the simplest failures can spell disaster on the water. My boat does not have a high water alarm (it soon will) if it did I wouldn’t be writing this post. A high water alarm could very well save you life. I can tell you from experience it isn’t a pleasant feeling when you realize you are taking on water, especially if by the time you notice it is nearly too late. Read to see what happened and then go buy a high water alarm for your vessel.
I went out yesterday morning to get my lobster traps in the water. I had them all soaking in there favorite spot in about 30 minutes and since I didn’t have to be at work until later in the day I figured I’d fish a while. I was about 4 miles off the coast of Marshfield jigging for signs of life. After a few short Cod I snagged a few mackerel on the retrieve so I switch gears and dropped a sabiki rig. I took over 200 mackerel in the next hour and I would have taken more except I noticed I was SINKING!!!! Yes sinking, at first I couldn’t believe my eyes but once it sank in (pardon the pun) the fishing quickly stopped. I’m looking at my transom and it is about 1/2″ from being under water. The drain holes in the transom were several inches under water, and so wasn’t the bilge access cover. A few more minutes and I think I would have been swimming. Luckily the boat was running while I was jigging for mackeral (only because I want to burn off the remainder of last years fuel) so I put it in gear, hit the manual bilge, and shut off the livewell all in the same motion. Then I opened the center floor access to see how much water I was dealing with…both of my batteries were completely submerged and the water level was nearly to the top of the access hatch…not good. Basically the only thing above water was the deck I was standing on. Luckily the manual bilge worked and as I crept forward the water level began to lower. So where did the water come from you ask? The drain hose on my livewell had disconnected from the hull fixture and all of the drain water was going directly into the bilge. Of course to make life more interesting the bilge float switch failed. The combination of those two things coupled with the distraction of mackerel and hooks flying everywhere almost spelled my doom. Never a dull moment out there. When can we learn form this? First off don’t take anything for granted, I don’t think I’m alone in assuming that the through hull fixtures (livewell pump and drain, head, and so on) didn’t need much attention beyond a visual inspection (which I did prior to launch and while she was floating). I also assumed my bilge floadt switch was ok since I had replaced it last year. Double check EVERYTHING, make that triple check everything because as you can see a few simple failures can end your life in a hurry. Do what I’ve done and go get a high water alarm. If had one installed I would have known I had a problem long before it was nearly critical. Johnson and Rule both make these units. The Johnson High Water Alarm has a test circuit build in the rule does not but both are better than nothing. BTW I purchased the Johnson product shipped for $70..I think my life is worth more than that and I’m guessing yours is too.