Help! Taking on Water

My '05 V215 Sanger is leaking in forward compartment; the area where the ballast bag lies. Every time I take it out I have to pump about 1 - 2 gallons of lake water out of the hold. At first I thought it might be water from the engine compartment running forward. I checked that out by plugging the waterway from the bow to stern to isolate the forward compartment. What's really strange is that the water appears even if I haven't filled the ballast that day. Here's what I've also checeked and eliminated:

ballast through hull intake.
hose fittings on fill and drain pumps.
Bow "Ice chest".


The boat is garaged so no chance of rain water being the cause.

I called Sanger today and they wouldn't put me through to anyone to help me troubleshoot. Instead they referred me to Kal Kustom, their Rep? Possibley becuase they do the ballast installations?

The only connections or areas left to check are the fill connection on the ballast bag, the drain hose connection to the port on the side of the hull, and bow winch eye. All areas which are pretty much inaccessible.

I'm dreading having to truck my boat up to Fresno to have them deal with this since It'll probably mean a month or more of downtime.

Anyone have any experience with this issue?

It sounds like the bag may be leaking or the plumbig to it. If I was you I would definately take it to your dealer and have them water test the boat and make sure they do. I know that you have to stay on top of the dealer your going to. My buddie bought a boat from him and has had nothing but complaints about the dealership. I live here in Fresno and have heard a lot of bad things about them, that was the main reason I didnt buy a sanger, the dealership.

Heater core?

Robert-
I've noticed that sometimes my center ballast bag will fill up while underway. I think it happens when we don't wait at idle for the center bag to fill, and head out. I'm guessing that this causes a siphon effect, even when the pump is off. For this reason, I would not rule out the ballast system as your leak point unless you can block the intake (unlikely).

With that said, there is always a little water in my hold around the center bag. In fact, I've noticed this problem on a 2000 X-Star, a 2002 X-Star, and a 2003 Malibu VLX. I've come to believe that this is just a side effect of using a bag instead of a hard tank, for whatever reason no one seems to be able to get a water-tight connection to the bag.

You could pull everything apart and silicone or otherwise seal all the connections, but when I did that with some fat sacks and quick-connects on my last boat, I still ended up with some seepage.

My advice? This is what I do. Let the bilge take care of it, that's what it's there for. Open up the top when you store it (mine lives indoors too), and if you're not going out for a while, use a wet/dry vac to pull the excess out.

Oh, and if you're still looking for answers, call Scott Pellaton at Kal Kustom (510) 651-8400. IIRC, Kal Kustom distributes all boats for Sanger, and Scott is the west coast rep, and a great guy to deal with.

Can you stop the intake for the ballast by turning a ball valve, or put a couple of pieces of duct tape over the inlet scoop to seal it real good and take it for a test spin?

Thanks for all the replys. I did call Kal Kustom and spoke with Scott Pellaton yesterday (Monday). He offered to have a look at the boat if I could get it to Freemont (yeah, right. there goes the summer). Anyway after explaining all the troubleshooting that I'd done so far, Scott thought that it could be either the ballast sac or a breach in the hull caused by a careless factory worker and their screw gun. So equipped with a cold beer and flashlight I went to work on the Fat Sac extraction.

NOTE: I'm always greatful for the wealth of information to be had from reading the discussion boards. I just wish I had read the posts about how you should always wear long pants and gloves when working down in the bildge. Rug Burns, fiberglass rash, anyone?

Anyway, the bag is out and it leaks. In fact it has about 5 leaks. All the leaks were at the end that was of course stuffed up in bow area. Mystery solved...alomost. While squirelling around in the bildge I also noticed a breach in the forward bulkhead (photo).

This was allowing water to pass through from the stern bildge and as we Direct Drive owner know, there's always a bit of water in the bildge from the shaft packing gland. It's usually never enough water to activate the auto bildge but at the end of the day, when the boat goes back on the trailer and in the garage, the bow is low and any water in the center bildge runs North.

As a final test I will run with the Sac out and check the bow area for any other leaks.

Thanks for the follow up Robert. Keep us posted about what you find.


/off to check my ballast bag

Good info, I think I should check mine also!

After yanking the leaking bow ballast I finally got out on the Lake (Castaic, CA) to check for any other leaks. All looked good except for areas that I metinoed in my first message which I'll probably patch up with some Marine-Tex and call it a day.