Thread: Thru-Hull Fittings

The next time you do a walk-around safety inspection of your rig take a few minutes and check all the thru-hull fittings if you have any.

I have a Fisher 1754 CC boat with a live well in front of the center console. The livewell drain hose empties out the bottom of the boat through a thru-hull fitting. I launched one day this fall and started down the lake and after about a mile I started getting water in the boat. I kicked on the bilge pump and made a mad dash back to the ramp. I was lucky I wasn't any further away from the ramp than I was. By the time I got back to the ramp I had a lot of water in the boat. I finally got it loaded on the trailer and when I pulled it out of the water, water started running out the bottom of the boat. The thru-hull fitting had cracked and broken off inside the boat between the hull and the inside metal floor leaving an almost 2 inch hole in the boat bottom. There was no way to install another thru-hull fitting without pulling off the center console and cutting an access thru the metal floor. Instead, I ended up cutting a round hole through the bottom of the livewell to replace the fitting and then installed a access plate over the hole. From what I have heard, thru-hull fittings failing is not an uncommon problem. Hard to believe that a cheap fitting could sink a boat and cause thousands of dollars in damage.

Livewell pumps also get brittle mine was acting up lucky I didn't check on the water got home started checking and it broke at transom.