Brain Dead Bilge Design?

I have the same problem as a lot of Moomba owners with water underneath the ski locker floor. I created an access hole to vac out the water. I also put a rubber plug in the ski-locker passageway that (I thought) went back to the bilge, to keep bilge water out of the ski locker.

I just winterized the boat the other day. In dumping a couple of gallons of water from the engine block into the bilge, I thought it would stay in the bilge. It does not...it goes up under the ski locker floor again! I don't understand how it is getting there. With the ski locker hole blocked, shouldn't the water stay in the bilge underneath the engine? Inquiring minds want to know....

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shouldn't the water stay in the bilge underneath the engine

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Its the degree of rocker that commonly found on almost all wake-boats being built these days. I see it them all. The low spot is in the center of the boat now, not the back.

When I pulled my floor on the obv 07 , same hull, to do some ballast work, the bilge water settle under the gas tank, I used a drill pump with the hose thru the ski locker hole to get to it. I did have the same ski locker problem, but not until I dunked the nose for the first time, I believe the water is getting in at the very tip of the boat, seems to be unfinished in the bow point.

Sorry if I didn't make it clear earlier; my boat is not in the water, and I'm not operating it. It's on the trailer, sitting at a slightly bow-down attitude.

Just sitting on the trailer, if I, right now, pour a gallon of water into the bilge underneath the engine, it ends up underneath the locker floor (basically, it runs along the very bottom of the boat up underneath the foam). The passageway between the engine bilge and the ski locker is plugged.

I still don't get why this happens...surely it's not supposed to be this way? I thought that with the ski locker passage plugged, the water would stay in the engine bilge.

unfortunately, the stringers are not properly sealed to the hull, which allows water to pass into the stringer structure where they've injected floatation foam. Unfortunately it's a common problem. My 08 was "fixed" under warranty. A boat repair shop cut holes in the ski locker and sucked out water, then let it dry out for a week. Then they sealed the hole and also sealed the forward edge of the ski locker floor way up in the bow area. I had the boat for 2 seasons after it was worked on and I couldn't detect any water entering that space since. But it sounds like you are having an issue with water entering that space from the rear of the ski locker stringer structure. Same issue, just a different entry point for the water.

Argh then. I wish I had known to look and work on that when I had the floor up a while back to replace the steering cable.

I HATE water being in my boat, anywhere. Water is supposed to be outside of it, not in it. I'm not sure how to address this issue though...what do you think about blocking up the passage that allows water to escape the bilge to underneath the floor (under the gas tank)? For me, that passage is just under the V-drive, and my bilge pump sits right there.

The only reason that I can think of to not do this that the overall bilge capacity is much less than what it would have been, but so long as the bilge pump is working it shouldn't be an issue.

I would just put a deck plate in the ski locker floor and shop vac it after each use. That's what I was going to do if SC hadn't covered it under warranty, or if it started collecting water again. When your dealing with seals between the stringers and hull, somethings going to fail, unless they fiberglass the seams. But the seals just look to be a heavy duty caulking of some sort, which will fail eventually. Bad design, period.

Yes, I have already put a deck place there, and that's how I'm extracting the water out (and that's also how I know so quickly when water gets under there, because it collects where I removed the foam).

The main annoyance is that it looks to me like I'm going to have to vac it out after every use of the boat (unless I plug up the passageway from the engine bilge), for about a week after each use because it takes a lot of time for the water to settle out. That means that the foam is pretty much wet all the time which grrr's me to no end.