Boat flooded - advice?

Went to the storage lot today to get the boat for the first time in a few months, and the canvas cover was halway removed like someone had gone through it to see if there was anything to steal. Got the cover off and there was 2-3 inches of rainwater in the floor of the boat. Opened the battery compartment and it was completely flooded. Appears that battery, perko, etc have been submerged possibly for several weeks or longer. (The plug was out but debris was blocking the drain to the point where water was just dripping out.)

What now? I'm letting everything dry out but with the battery, perko and wiring submerged for so long I'm guessing this is bad, right? Any recos on where I can have in checked out? I'm just south of Denton.

Did you take photos of what it looked like before you let the water out? That would let us assess the level of damage. With fresh water, the onset of trouble isn't as guaranteed as with saltwater. For things like the Perko switch, it's important to dry them out as rapidly as possible once you get them exposed to air. You need a fan in there to circulate as much air as possible to dry things out. Disassemble what you can ASAP (like that switch, take the cover off) so moisture isn't trapped inside. If you had marine grade wire, you might get lucky. Either way, it may not corrode so don't write off the wiring yet. If the battery top was submerged, you got some battery acid leakage. You'd want to hose out the flooded area ASAP, maybe even mix up some baking soda & water to douse around, especially on the interior of that Perko switch. After any baking soda douse, rinse everything down. Did any oil get into the water? If so, spray down with a degreaser, then rinse again. Open the lids, get some fans on it, and tilt it to drain.

You might want to think of getting under any panels to the bilge to see what kind of mess is there, and get all the debris out of there!

If you have a remote oil tank make sure no water got into it!

Thanks guys. I got everything dried out and cleaned up, and to my surprise it fired right up.

Thank you, Flippin-Out, for taking the time to offered detailed advice. Much appreciated. Looks like I dodged a bullet.

Good for you. I hope you got that bilge cleaned up to help avoid a blocked drain flood in the future. You also don't want that stuff down there as it could block a bilge pump when you really need it to work.

Contact your Insurance Company and let them know. We had this happen to us in 2002??? Had a Scout 192 CC Bay boat that we left in the driveway at our bay house. Left the plug in it by mistake and it rained.....a lot the 2-weeks we weren't down there. boat flooded sitting in the driveway. Had major issues.....a month or so down the line. Eventually had to get the entire boat re-wired. everything was fried. Even had to do major work to motor if i recall.......water had gotten in the oil tank and we ran the engine....pretty sure it seized up after 2 hrs of running.

major pain in the rear.

I’m not surprised. It is a boat made of mostly water resistant and waterproof items. Glad it is ok.

Boats are designed to work when wet. I'm not surprised it fired right up. When I was in the USN I saw some small boats that were really swamped. Drain them of water, change the oil and go.

A friend of mine has a lake house on Conroe with a covered boat slip which he would wrench up the boat in the air when not using. When he went to check on it after Hurricane Ike, the boat was filled with water and was lucky the weight of the boat didn’t take down the structure. Ever since then I always take out the plug when storing.