A cone shaped wooden plug surfaced from my bilge yesterday during an adventure initiated by me filling my water tanks and getting lots of water in the bilge. The leak is being investigated but I’m wondering about the cone shaped plug. Should have taken a photo. It’s about four inches long and two inches across its widest base and tapers to one-quarter inch. Any ideas?
Dan Mills
sakina NS30U #460
West River, MD
very possible a thru hull plug for emergency.
Chuck Mitchell
NS 33 #60
Cape Cod
Funny you should mention Dan. That cone-shaped plug is likely an emergency plug, used if one of your thru-hulls somehow becomes a totally inside piece of equipment. You can also pick up hard foam ones on Amazon. I have one or the other in the bilge in each “compartment” of the bilge that has a thru-hull (or did, anyway. Now I have to go check.) You might consider having a small mallet nearby that you can use to tap (or pound, if the water is pouring in) the plug in place.
Note this is (obviously?) a temporary repair and you should be looking to get hauled out of the water ASAP, or even sooner.
The funny part? I was out on the boat with a coworker and our spouses on Labor Day. To set up, I went down to the boat on Friday to clean and such, and I decided to fill one of the water tanks, for ballast if nothing else. I completely forgot that I had not de-winterized the water system, and so I ended up with fifty or sixty gallons of water in the bilge. And dumb me, I had been fiddling with the bilge pump switch and forgot to switch it back to automatic. When I got to the boat on Monday, the bilge was filled with water. Took almost five whole minutes for the bilge pump to pump it all out!
(And the sail on Monday was a blast. Winds from the north at 10-15 with gusts up to 20, was the prediction. I didn’t go back and look, but that seemed right.)
Brian
SV Serenity
Nonsuch Nereus #003
Pax River, MD
Yep; that’s what it is. Found some images online. Hope I never need it.
Dan Mills
sakina NS30U #460
West River, MD.
Good Morning Dan,
Hope you don’t need the plug either but locate it someplace that you will know where it is at and easy to get. Crew should also be advised. I usually do this when I walk guests around the boat to instruct where all the safety stuff is.
Cheers,
Butch
Butch Garren
Nonsuch 30 #196 “Whiskers II”
SIYC Slip 12
Solomons, MD
It’s common practice to drill a hole through the wide end of the bung (plug) and tie it with a string to the thru-hull valve. One of correct size should be tied onto hose at each thru-hull, that way it’s always readily available if needed.