Brine

I have a new to me pond prowler type boat (no name anywhere), and am trying to figure out the two holes in the bottom. One is rubber (presumably for a plug) and one appears to be steel pipe with outside threads. Can someone give me insight as to how/why these are there? They appear to be in a location higher than the "pontoons" on the side.

Cut an inch off the overflow tube?

Agree with doing a leak test by filing the boat with a couple inches of water, then fixing the leak(s). Just take a sharpie and mark the leaks on the bottom of the hull. Then determine if it would be better to fix/patch/epoxy, or weld the leaks. If the boat is riveted, it would be better to rebuck the rivets rather than using any type of patch. I'd try to view the bilge as an emergency accessory instead of a maintenance accessory. Besides the welding.... most fix options will cost less than a 750 bilge.

When you say "does the carpet actually work", what do you mean?

The boat using ACM turned out great. You can see the Brine Craft build on the TinBoats site. http://www.tinboats.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6551

Seal it up with spar urethane. You can by sheets of closed cell foam at Lowes and Home Depot. You need to know how much foam you need to float the boat, otherwise you're just adding more weight to the boat. Seeing how I fish electric only reservoirs, it would take a catastrophic event to swamp my boat, so I'll take my chances and use the available space for storage.

If you can get at them, rebuck the rivets that leak. Cost is zero dollars, and you've addressed the problem instead of hiding it.

Anyone have a majic distance between the pedal well and the center of the pedestal base? Ideally with a leaning post style seat as opposed to the sit down version.

It beared my weight as a floor, so I think the luck part is over. Tile is a flooring material, but you won't find it in many boats.

As an update, I think the ACM will work fine. I've bought it, cut it, and put it in the floor of the boat. Next is framing out the decks.

X2

Fair enough D4. I don't doubt you catch more fish while alone. My whole point was to say that it MIGHT not be attributed to who is wearing sunscreen in the boat. MAYBE it could be the increase in noise that's created by having 3 people in the boat or 3 lures hitting the water that are spooking the fish that you don't while fishing alone. Maybe it's a better sense of concentration you have when fishing alone. We both know it could be a multitude of reasons. And yes, I recognize it could very well be the sunscreen. Good luck and take advantage of any time you can fishing with your Dad in the boat.

Outside of hijacking this thread from a bass repellant discussion into one of melanoma, I hope that some of you may realize the value it has to the younger readers on this forum instead of how not using it puts more fish in the boat. : My father in law (of 12 years) is a dermatalogical surgeon, and the subject has been repeatedly discussed over the years. He is the primary source of my research. Contrary to your ill-informed beliefs....All skin types are diagnosed with skin cancer, and whether or not you get sunburned is not a determining factor of being at risk. Yes, some skin types are more prone than others, but NONE are excluded. I "assumed" since your father used sunscreen, you would has a similar skin type (which apparently I'm wrong), but like I said...All skin types are prone to melanoma caused by over exposure to the sun. FYI, my father had skin cancer removed from his nose 20 years ago at age 45 and he too has contributed to my "research" over the years. In an effort to contribute to the original discussion, I used sunscreen at all 17 fishing tournaments last year, finished 4th in points in our club (out of 40+ teams), and won our classic. All with the help of sunscreen, and I didn't wash my hands after I applied it. Bull Frog seemed to be the secret attractant.

yah...melanoma...kewl 8-) Lots better ways of learning how to catch more fish than avoiding sunscreen. :