Sunk Houseboat Maintenance Report - don't flood and sink your house boat

by Gary Edwards
(Fairfield Bay AR)

Sunken Houseboat - tips not to sink your house boat

When it comes to a houseboat maintenance report, you don't want to flood and sink your house boat, especially if you're not there. Here's an excellent example of a new houseboat owners situation after buying a used boat.

I have a small company on a 40,000 acre lake in North Central Arkansas. I do some work for the Army Corps of Engineering. I was called by the corps about a sunken houseboat, I went and checked on the boat before I returned with equipment to recover it.

I was able to piece together the mishap with information from the owner. This was a new houseboat owner who bought this 1970, 34' houseboat at the end of the season, The owner had tied it beside a private dock with intentions of having it removed from the lake to start a remodel.

However time gets away from you and before you know it, it's the Holidays and then January. In North Central Arkansas during the winter the temps drop low, this year they got as low as 5 degrees above 0.

As a new owner they were told that the seals on the outdrive needed to be checked and replaced. The owner was going to have this all done when it was pulled out. However the batteries got rundown by trying to run the bilge pumps and the cold temps. It was not enough, and the engine compartment filled with water and so the whole boat was filled which caused it to sink.

All this simply because the owner got busy with other things, and forgot that the boat needed to be pulled out or for what ever the reason. All it would have taken was to at least have someone check on it until it was removed, or to make sure that it was plugged into shore-power. It is removed now.

So have your boats checked on through out the winter, so you will be ready to start the next boating season without problems, even if you have insurance, but what a hassle, and total waste of your time having to deal with insurance claims, adjusters, and the loss of a boat and the boating season. And even if you have good insurance you always lose some money on the settlement.

Well that's all for now, so please boat safely this year and hope for a early spring, Gary Edwards, Fairfield Bay AR.



Reply - Answer
Well Gary, thanks for taking the time to post this excellent example of a typical houseboat sinking. When it comes to maintenance and keeping an eye on your boat, there is some small vital things that need to be done.

Since I teach boating safety with the Power Squadron and work with the Coast Guard Auxiliary, we can't stress enough some of these very important factors. Unfortunately some boats can sink if they are not maintained or looked after.

Lastly, hopefully some of our readers and visitors will share and post comments about their houseboat maintenance tips, or sinking houseboat experiences. Feel free to use the "Click here to post comments." link found near the bottom of this page.


Thanks again for sharing, IAN - from www.all-about-houseboats.com

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