It rained the other night in Boston. Or said another way…it RAINED the other night in Boston. Six inches in two hours! At times the rain was so loud it sounded like a freight train. I lay in bed listening and smiling, thinking of my Wahoo! in its slip, warmed by the thought of the two bilge pumps I’d installed this past year (one in the deck drain basin and one in the true bilge), doing their job. No worries.

Until I remembered that the day before I’d taken the battery out of the boat and brought it home to charge it. Shoot.

It being a weekday, I had to go to work that morning and couldn’t check on the boat until later. All day I wondered if I’d find it full of water up to the gunnels or worse. It wasn’t though. I walked out onto the dock that evening to find it bobbing in its slip. Well not bobbing, exactly. Actually the stern was sitting pretty low in the water. I hooked up the battery and the pumps went to work, removing about 100 gallons of water, most of it from below deck.

Once the season is over and I have more time I’ll write a lot more about the Wahoo!s plumbing…the supposedly self-bailing system, the deck drain, the true bilge, what drains into where and so on. It’s one of the most confusing aspects of these boats and one of the most asked about by Wahoo! owners. For now, though, I’ll just say that in my (limited) experience: A) If you keep your Wahoo! in the water you most definitely need a bilge pump, and quite likely two; B) Even if you don’t keep it in the water you may prefer a pump in the deck drain basin to Wahoo!s self-bailing design; and C) Rule pumps…ummm….rule. They are rugged, dependable workhorses. And made right here in the great state of Massachusetts. :-)