Water coming in scuppers

river man

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On my 1996 192 Tournament I'm finding water sitting in the starboard stern. I recently repowered with a 150 4 stroke Yamaha and understand it's heavier than my old 2 stroke but was assured by the dealer it wouldn't be an issue. The scupper on the starboard side does sit below the water line. Anything I can do to resolve?
 

Father's Day

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On my 1996 192 Tournament I'm finding water sitting in the starboard stern. I recently repowered with a 150 4 stroke Yamaha and understand it's heavier than my old 2 stroke but was assured by the dealer it wouldn't be an issue. The scupper on the starboard side does sit below the water line. Anything I can do to resolve?
If you have two batteries move one too where the oil tank was, should solve your problem, if only one battery move that one over.
 
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Coastboater

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They make scupper plugs. My 225 Freedom came with them.
 

DennisG01

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On my 1996 192 Tournament I'm finding water sitting in the starboard stern. I recently repowered with a 150 4 stroke Yamaha and understand it's heavier than my old 2 stroke but was assured by the dealer it wouldn't be an issue. The scupper on the starboard side does sit below the water line. Anything I can do to resolve?
Is it actually coming in via the scuppers or is it leftover rainwater because the boat is listing slightly to stbd with your current weight distribution?

Where were your scuppers compared to the waterline with the old engine?

Is there also water in your bilge? That could add quite a bit more weight.

Otherwise, yes, just play with weight distribution. Both left to right and forward to back.
 

Sardinia306Canyon

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I have been in the same situation with my 98 BW 23 Outrage.
Moving the batteries from the transom area inside the console helped a lot with this problem.
Shifting (or adding) more weight from the stern area to the bow area will help also to get the transom up and a better level when cruising.
Chris
 

igblack87

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Can you get us a picture of your scupper situation?
 

Norcoastal

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My scuppers are below the water line and we’re old. I replaced them and 99% of my problems went away
 

glacierbaze

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Every time I see a thread about moving batteries and weight to the front, it reminds me of the time I almost swamped my 22 tournament. My lower unit did not quite clear the water when in the slip, so I had the bright idea of leaving a large cooler full of water in the bow seating area, which did the trick.
I didn’t notice that I had actually tilted the deck to where it drained back to front, and when we had a hard rain that evening, all the water ran to the bow, and there are no deck drains forward of the helm. Luckily, someone saw it, and the Dock Master gave me a call. If you get your deck anywhere close to the neutral level area, a boat wake or the wind can send any water on the deck forward, and the boat might not be able to recover.
 

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I recently moved my batteries to the bow in preperation for a new engine. Boats still at the shop so haven't tried it out yet. Was more of a pain than I thought and 2awg wires along cost $400. Had to also buy a hydaulic crimper and crimps for the cables...took a lot of work to get it done. Also have to move and reqire the battery switch, pumps in the stern, etc. When all is said and done probably cost $700 to do myself and took a day to do. Will be interesting to see how it rides. Have a bildge pump under the floor in the bow too just in case water drains forward but don't expect it too.

https://www.greatgrady.com/threads/mounting-batteries-in-bow.38232/#post-271960
 

Sardinia306Canyon

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Every time I see a thread about moving batteries and weight to the front, it reminds me of the time I almost swamped my 22 tournament.
Honestly i thought that it should be clear that any added weight in the bow area should not exceed the weight what makes a boat slightly stern heavy. A motor boat should have the stern few degrees lower than the bow so that water will run to the stern where the scuppers are to allow water do drain and not accumulate on the bow what obviously is very dangerous at a unattended rest.
A further problem with too much weight on the bow is that a high deadrise bow boat will most likely start to bow steer much earlier than a correctly levelled boat.
It is important to verify deck level after moving weight to the bow, either with a angle measuring app in the phone or best throwing buckets of water on the bow and check for correct flow to the stern.

Moving batteries in the centerconsole should not make a boat too bow heavy while moving them to the bow can become one, as shorter the boat more the hull feel the shifted weight. Same with pre +/- 2000 hulls designed for 2 strokes where installing 4 strokes can lead to extreme stern heavy sitting at rest, ventilation issues when going over the hump and eventually bow high running at planing speed. In this case moving batteries to the bow or adding weight to the bow can help/solve to fix that behaviour.

Most cabin boats have a center and/or bow bilge pump as due the weight of the superstructure they usually rest more horizontally than open boats what rises the risk of sinking over the bow if the cabin should flow.
I never had nor one of the many many open boats i was or worked on had a bow bilge pump, simply because they don't need it, except the case that a large open container on the bow could fill with rainwater and push the bow down to a level where rainwater will not flow to the scuppers at the stern.

Chris
 

Ky Grady

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Don't take this the wrong way, but with that scum line around your boat and scuppers in the midst of that scum, I can see why they aren't sealing. You need to pull the boat and at least clean the areas around the scuppers and also the flaps. If flaps are shot, can always get new flaps.
 

river man

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Don't take this the wrong way, but with that scum line around your boat and scuppers in the midst of that scum, I can see why they aren't sealing. You need to pull the boat and at least clean the areas around the scuppers and also the flaps. If flaps are shot, can always get new flaps.
I know, it's end of season up here on the Canadian border, so a bit of neglect. I've cleaned the flaps however so suspect they need to be replaced. Thanks for the input
 

Jim L.

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I had a low riding stern on my 1996 Tournament 192 equipped with a new Mercury 150 4 stroke. Turned out the problem was a lot of water in the bilge area. I had bought a repowered 192 with new motor, instrumentation, seats, etc. I keep my boat on a lift at my dock, and before putting it back in the water I would run the bilge pump to jettison any accumulated rain and other water. Only a tiny amount of water would come out which I thought was a good sign that water was not getting in. But the boat would always ride very low in the stern. After investigating it turned out the line from the bilge pump through the bilge hole on the starboard side was blocked solid from years of accumulated silt/debris. So although the bilge pump ran and would sound like it was working, very little water was able to get through the clogged line. After flushing out the clogged bilge pump line in both directions, the bilge pump was then actually able to do its job and eject accumulated bilge water. Not surprisingly the stern now sits much higher in water when the bilge is dry instead of being full of gallons and gallons of water!
 
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river man

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I had a low riding stern on my 1996 Tournament 192 equipped with a new Mercury 150 4 stroke. Turned out the problem was a lot of water in the bilge area. I had bought a repowered 192 with new motor, instrumentation, seats, etc. I keep my boat on a lift at my dock, and before putting it back in the water I would run the bilge pump to jettison any accumulated rain and other water. Only a tiny amount of water would come out which I thought was a good sign that water was not getting in. But the boat would always ride very low in the stern. After investigating it turned out the line from the bilge pump through the bilge hole on the starboard side was blocked solid from years of accumulated silt/debris. So although the bilge pump ran and would sound like it was working, very little water was able to get through the clogged line. After flushing out the clogged bilge pump line in both directions, the bilge pump was then actually able to do its job and eject accumulated bilge water. Not surprisingly the stern now sits much higher in water when the bilge is dry instead of being full of gallons and gallons of water!
I'll look into it - might very well be the case. Thanks much.
 

Mustang65fbk

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Several factors can be at play here... first would be the additional weight of a 4 stroke outboard as opposed to the 2 stroke that the boat came with. The additional weight will likely lower the boat down a bit in the stern to where the scuppers are at or under the waterline, especially with a full fuel tank, added weight in the boat, persons onboard and so forth. Additionally, the rubber scupper flappers themselves likely need to be replaced, or even potentially the drain tubes that they are attached to if those are cracked, aren't sealed well, etc. I think your first, and best bet, would be to replace the rubber scupper flappers, make sure that the tubes aren't cracked, as well as that they're sealed correctly and then go from there to see if that solves your problem. I had the same issue when I first bought my boat, added new rubber scupper flappers and the problem went away. You can get them from your local GW dealership, or probably for half the price or less on Amazon or wherever you do your online shopping. As was also mentioned, debris and junk can also get in there and keep the flaps open as well as any water already in the bilge, or that leaks down into the bilge, won't help the process and will only lower the boat lower in the water. I believe that the rubber scupper flapper, at least for my boat in particular is 1.5".

 

Sardinia306Canyon

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As i wrote above, i had the same issue on my 98 model BW Outrage 23.
Changing the rubber flaps did not really helped as they are usually not watertight (i guess that they act as flap who close when stopping the boat and water rush towards the transom) and water will leak in when at rest.
I almost sunk the boat once for a combination of two problems similar as Jim L. wrote:
the small "harbour" where i kept the Outrage had a massive rat problem and one climbed aboard and eat a small hole in the stbd cockpit drain elbow so rainwater and the water leaking back thru the rubber flappers leaked in the bilge.
So i left in summer after months of no rain with some clients for two scuba dives near shore and bilge pump did not started automatically so i thought all was fine. When we are on anchor and got geared up to dive the weight of gear and clients on the stern pushed the scuppers even more under water and more water leaked in the bilge and wind picked up and created a about 2ft chop.
When we came back up and i i started to drive back i noticed that the boat is behaving "heavy" but bilge pump still was not pumping out nothing so i opened the hatch to access the bilge where the 4 100Ah batteries are and found the bilge almost full and the batteries submerged.
As i could hear the bilge pump running and i rigged the boat by my self i knew that and how i could pull the bilge pump body and found the wire mesh filter totally clogged by probably tree leaf fibres creating a felt like watertight cover rendering the bilge pump useless.
I have absolutely no idea where this leafs came from, my guess is the rat/s brought them in to build a nest.
I pulled this felt cap away and bilge pump started to work again and emptied the bilge and we could drive back to the harbour, but i had to flush with freshwater all batteries and cables and clean them to avoid corrosion.

The lesson i learned from that is
installing a bilge high water alarm is always a very good idea
check bilge pump frequently for function, float switch and pumping
check cockpit drains frequently for leaks draining in the bilge

keep the bilge clean, spotless clean (BTW:most common use for a burnt bilge pump is a by debris stuck open float switch)
keep mice and rats out of a boat as they will do damage on many boat parts

To solve the problem with the stern heavy sitting at rest i moved the 4 batteries inside the console and added some wight to the bow anchor locker what lifted the scuppers about one inch out of the water what was enough to solve the problem at rest, but not enough when diving or fishing with more than 4 people in the cockpit.

Chris