Pull it like a grenade pin and throw it as far away from the boat as possible (into the water)
Story time!
Drunk dad takes me and my Boxer pup on the lake in our crappy little boat. Great times! Until we stopped for a minute to rescue dog overboard. Then we start sinking, plug’s laying on the deck, and the motor won’t start. Then dad falls out trying to get the dog. At this point we’re up to the fucking gunwales with water. Never saw dad panic before or since, guess he couldn’t swim, but he was flooding the boat trying to scramble back in.
Forgot how I managed, but got it beached on the closest shore. Dad bails of the boat with his cookie tin full of pot, terrified it got wet. It wasn’t, so he rolled a joint.
Boat won’t start because the battery was underwater too long, dead as a sack of hammers. I take his keys and start on the 12-mile walk back to the car. 10-miles of dragging that fucking dog down that country road. Why dragging? Because it got dark and I had trained her to not move when she saw headlights coming. Fuck me. Why 2-miles short? Because dad came driving up!
So many lessons learned that day. #1 was probably: Just walk to the nearest house and ask for help. Fuck me.
(This was in the early 90s, no cell. Dad actually had a car phone, for all the good it did.)
Next time I’ll tell y’all about me and the boys sinking my canoe. That was a great camping trip.
Answer from comment chain: drain plug from a boat. Without it boat floods, used to drain boats before towing
Grandpa always had 3-5 in the glovebox of his truck. One would always get left somewhere or someone at the boat launch would be swearing about missing theirs and he’d give them one. Just one of those things you have to keep around.
Are they like one size fits all?
No, but in the area we were in at the time it was mainly flat-bottomed aluminum boats. All of them were similar sizes, so pretty generic plugs.
If you can get the boat going before it floods, the boat moving through the water will create enough suction to drain out any water. You just better have a plug waiting for you at your destination.
LOL, read my story below. Tried exactly that, and it worked well enough to get beached. Shenanigans followed.
Explanation for stupid folks like me? What is that?
This is a butt plug for a boat. When you trailer the boat, you pull it out to drain water out of the bildge.
Now that we know, why the hell isn’t it on a chain right next to where it belongs`We have figured that much out for the bath-plug ffs.
Probably due to the drain being on the back of the boat towards the bottom. Bath tubs don’t get towed on a trailer at 60 mph.
No but RVs and Campers do and they keep the drain plugs attached via plastic.
Just plug it back in when transporting.
TIL boats have buttholes
They ALL do! I have 5 kayaks, 1 giant canoe and a 10’ flat bottom. They all have a drain plug of some sort.
Within seconds of shoving off into the swamp last spring when I noticed the missing plug. Trick here is, the canoe takes a minute to flood and I would have been well away from shore before noticing. Also, the monster LIPO4 battery and trolling motor would have took us to Dave Jone’s locker with the quickness. Can’t imagine how I could have got that gear back, but at least the water’s clear!
Bilge?
boat bung
dbidldge
Water that seeps into the open space at the bottom of a boat/ship.
Right, I know “bilge,” but they wrote “bildge.”
Boss mode ! Thanks
Get ready for a mass influx of upvotes. I’m honored to be the first.
Commenting to check again later. I’m curious too.
It’s for draining your boat. Lacking it will sink your boat.
Same, what the hell
Reverse image search says “Boat drain plug”
This happened twice to me and my Dad. The last thing we usually do when talking the boat out of the water is remove the drain plug. It is kept in the boat’s glove compartment, when not in the water. Both times we noticed pretty quickly and were able to get it back on the trailer and pull it up to drain.
Some kind of ignition, probably?
The remix, actually.
Is that some kind of oil plug for a car?
