Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered...

With repairs made, I'm ready to go again.

By Ken Testorff

Yes, I know that's the title of a show tune and popular song from the 1940 Rodgers and Hart musical "Pal Joey," but that's not what I want to talk about. My only intention here is to point out that no bass angler in his/her right mind ever wants to find himself/herself in that condition during a fishing trip, especially when that outing is a small, local tournament. Yet, that's exactly where I found myself early one morning in September 2009.

While running to my first spot that morning, I had seen the light for my bilge pump come on, but a quick glance over my shoulder revealed that no water was pumping overboard. My thought then was, "Never mind, I'll have a look once I shut down the outboard"--a mistake on my part. A smart person would have returned to the dock and checked out the matter. As an employee (at that time) of the Naval Safety Center, you'd think I would have used a little of the same "risk management" philosophy we always were preaching to the fleet, but no, I was bore sighted on getting to that first spot and trying to load the boat with bass. It turned out that I loaded the boat alright--with North Landing River water, though, not bass.

My first fishin' hole was about a 15-minute run from West Neck Marina in my boat, but that's when everything on board is working correctly, which, as I've already told you, wasn't the case. I soon was going to find out, among other things, just how long it can take to pass each one of those channel markers on the river. Suffice it to say I was reminded of the tortoise and hare story before all was said and done.

When I shut down the gas motor and finally had a look at the situation--another mistake on my part, because I'm really not mechanically inclined--I failed to arrive at the right conclusion. I opened the bilge compartment and saw some water, but not enough to alarm me. I then tried a couple things to get the water to pump overboard, to no avail. With this many red flags showing, most people would have headed to the dock, but not me. I simply decided to start fishing and to keep checking the bilge.

Some 15 minutes or so later, I turned around on the pedestal seat and noticed that water was starting to cover the floor of the boat. I knew it was past time for another check of the bilge. I opened the lid to find my onboard battery charger completely submerged, and water lacked only a couple inches of going over the top of my batteries. "I'd better make some phone calls and get this thing headed toward the marina," I finally thought to myself. Duh!

At this point, I was starting to get a bit excited, but that feeling was about to ramp up several notches when I fired up the outboard and discovered that I couldn't get the boat on step. As a matter of fact, I couldn't even gain enough speed to curtail the flooding. The water was getting deeper around my ankles, and I had tackleboxes floating around the floor--not exactly a vision, much less the reality, any bass angler ever wants to entertain. "How many ways can you spell stupid?"--that's what I kept asking myself.

I then whipped out my cellphone and made two calls; I would learn later that I should have made three. I'll explain that statement before I'm done. My first call was to my long-time friend Dewey Mullins, who runs West Neck Marina. My plea to him was simple: HELP!!! After adding the reason for my distress call, I asked if he could send someone to give me a hand. He promised to dispatch a boat right away. My second call was to another long-time friend and boat mechanic Wayne Hayes, asking if he had any advice for a dummy in crisis mode. Wayne agreed to stay on the line and walk me through some things I could do as I waited for help to arrive from the marina.

Those channel markers seemed to be passing at an ever-increasingly painstaking pace, and watching water slosh around the floor of my boat only added to my discomfort. Meanwhile, I tried to focus my eyes in the direction from which help would be coming. I can't begin to tell you what a relief it was to see a boat headed toward me that I recognized as being from West Neck. Dewey had sent his son, Curtiss Wayne, with a portable bilge pump and battery to run it. Curtiss held our two boats together, while I hooked up the wires. In mere moments, water finally was pumping overboard. It took a spell, but once the level was down far enough I knew I could run, I thanked Curtiss and asked him to call the marina and have them keep the ramp area open for my arrival. He agreed, and I headed toward West Neck as fast as my 115 Yamaha would take me. I seldom put the hammer down all the way, but then I don't face situations like this all the time, either.

The ramp was wide open when I arrived, and I passed my vehicle keys to Curtiss, who seemed to have shown up out of nowhere (he had been a good distance behind me the last time I looked over my shoulder while running). Once he had backed my trailer in the water, I drove the boat on, shut everything down, and thanked my lucky stars for having friends I could count on in a bind.

Oh, by the way, that third call I should have made was to my wife. I learned that Dewey had called and awakened her a short time after I called him. He wanted to know if she could give him my cellphone number. She immediately asked why, and he told her I had called and reported that my boat was taking on water, which prompted her to try and call me. She couldn't get through, of course, because I was hanging on the phone with Wayne. Let's just say that among all the other lessons I learned that September day was one about getting my "priorities" straight.

Wayne's investigation of my problem revealed a double whammy. The PVC-pipe through-hull fitting for the livewell had broken off, which allowed water to enter the boat unchecked, and the fitting on the bilge pump also had severed. In a nutshell, the inflow of water never would have stopped, nor would any of it ever have been discharged. What caused the problem? I'll never know for sure, but my theory is that it may have been the result of a hard jolt I had taken a couple weeks earlier while getting over another boat's wake. It was all I could do to hang onto the steering wheel in that episode. Perhaps that jolt cracked both fittings, and they just fell apart during my run on tournament morning.

That memorable day on the water turned out not to be a total loss after all. Once Wayne had diagnosed the problems, he took me fishing in his rig, and we both caught a few fish, which always goes a long ways in healing any kind of wounds, even those to our pride. He also repaired everything and had me back on the water in no time. If there is a moral to this story, it has to be this old one: "A friend in need is a friend indeed."

Epilog: As a result of this incident, I carry a portable, battery-powered bilge pump in my boat as part of the standard safety equipment--just in case history ever repeats itself.