---

I have our Outrage moored about 800-1000 feet off the beach, pretty much in open water, but it's always fared well. It seems while I was away today, a serious squall moved in and really churned up the seas, produced some serious downpours along with very large swells.

When I got back late this afternoon, took a look out, and I knew right away she was sitting very heavy. Long story short, got out to her and the boat was flooded, the stern was so heavy that the ocean water was level with the top of the transom, and flooding in on most every swell.

Seems the bilge pump was overwhelmed for some reason and it eventually killed the #1 battery. So I switched to both batts, started her up, but the bilge output was weak and not doing much. Every time I went down to the back of the boat, it sank noticably lower in the water, so I couldn't spend much time there with the wave action. Tried a number of different things, and after about an hour of no luck, decided to pull the rear drain plug. It was flooded anyway, so I figured it couldn't get any worse eh?

Now this Whaler is heavy with water in the foam already, but at that point I had no choice. After about 10-15 minutes, I was happily surprised to see the top of the transom about 4" above the water, it was no longer taking in water on every swell, and the deck was almost water free (it was nearly up to the console before)! I was single handed and the swells are still signficant, or I would have taken her out to drain while moving. But the risk of capsizing with such a heavy boat in those seas felt all too real. When I then went to the back, she'd still take on some water on the larger swells, so I ended up just leaving the plug out, and am now hoping the seas calm down as she'll be OK if they do.

With the transom and splashwell to rear fish well plugs out, he water level seemed to settle about 1" below the lower rim of the top of the rear fish well. Does anyone know approximately about where this level should be with the plug out?

I'm wondering if between the heavier weight of the new Etec, the second added battery back there, and the heavy hull, that maybe the big swells were dipping the transom under and that's what lead to all this flooding? Maybe if I had the plug in between the splash well and the fish well (where the pump is) this wouldn't have happened?

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated as I'm pretty surprised this happened and would like to prevent it from occurring again....