Can anyone tell me why water does not drain from the various compartments into the one where the bilge pump resides? The only way I can remove this
water is to lift the floorboards and use a sponge and if I don't do this the water causes havoc on the underside finish of the floorboards. It does not make sense that Beneteau would design a boat with such a seemingly obvious deficiency.
This one took us a while to figure out. After a few years with our 361, we thought that the wet bilge was "normal" and just lived with it. On the trip to Florida, however, my brother-in-law and I figured out the issues. The compartments are indeed connected by weep holes, but there are sections under the port settee and galley where water gets temporarily trapped. In our case, we'd clean up all the water, check it an hour later and there'd be more water! We finally solved it by using a shop vac and some rags to seal up the holes, allowing us to get a good suction and pull the water out of the hidden areas. Once the bilge was truly empty, it has stayed bone dry for 2 years.
The main source of the water was the years of winterizing the water heater, which empties into the bilge (plus a time when the hose on the pump came off, emptying both fresh water tanks into the bilge, but that's a long story). The six gallons of water from the heater would get dumped into the bilge, then sloshed into the hidden areas, where it would never get completely removed. Now that we don't have to winterize (we love SW Florida!), the bilge is completely dry. If we still had to winterize, I'd do that shop vac thing after emptying the heater for Winter.
One other thing - the sections of the bilge by the head and in the galley are in the widest and flattest part of the hull and don't drain well. If your 361 is a bit stern-heavy like ours, they will never drain completely to the bilge pump area. We just sopped up what we could and shop vac'd the hidden areas, and it has remained dry. Good luck!
Dean Thomas
2001 Beneteau 361
Second Wind
Cape Coral, FL
