Mike Borgerding, VIKING,

Never underestimate the importance of sound cockpit drainage. I know of one TRITON that sank at the dock due to split cockpit drain hoses. I had inspected this boat during my TRITON shopping tour, and was very concerned about the ancient cracked hoses. 3 weeks later it went down.

With reinforced faith in sound cockpit drainage, I added ball valves to the cockpit drain through hulls on VIKING in 1985, which changed the alignment of the through hull and scupper hose barbs to several inches offset. Trimmed off the excess pipe on the through hull fitting to minimize the offset between the ball valve barb and the cockpit scupper. I used a green reinforced very heavy duty gauge hose - as heavy as I could go and still be able to make the bend without kinking the hose ( might be exhaust hose??) It is a very tight fit, but still holding up very well.

While you are at it, add backing plates for the through hull fitting. I used 1/2 " pads, approx. 5 - 6 " diam., bedded in DYNAGLASS (sp?) to fill in the voids from the curvature of the hull.

Use top quality S/S double hose clamps on top and bottom of the hose - inspect and change regularly. Exercise the valves often, and lube them at haulout time.

Bill Bell, KIALOA, #41

Attention All Hands - Reading all this good stuff lately on scupper hoses reminds me of a guy some years back who had a real leak coming into his boat from the area where the hoses from scuppers and the cockpit drain meet at the "tree" or complex struxture just inside the hull where three hoses meet on each side of EC boats. It turned out that in storage, bits of crud had gotten down the small hoses. In spring- when the boat was not yet launched, water got down those hoses, could not get through the crud and froze in place. The hose cracked - maybe both, I don't recall - and there was a real tussle figuring out where the water was coming from - let alone how to get at it and fix it - on launching day. Best wishes for a good nights' sleep

Most of us use the toughest radiator hos

Michael Duff

I understand why that through hull would make you nervous... That hose cracking resulted in my boat sinking in her slip this summer. Lucky for me she was COMPLETELY stripped prior to repainting the interior. Also, she could only sink about nine inches at my marina.

So anyways, I ended up sending my girlfriend to an Auto Zone with a piece of the old hose, and they came through for me nicely. It's some heavy duty engine-type (A real mechanic here, you call tell...) of hose. Looks bombproof to me, and I only had to cut a couple of inches off to make it fit. I think to replace them both cost me less than $5. I don't think I've ever walked out of West Marine, having only spent five bucks!