250 Sportsman questions

[jasoncooperpcola]

I have an 86 250 Sportsman. Does anybody know where i can get the 2 decals for the side that say 250 Sportsman? Also has anybody ever got water in the very forward compartment under the water tank? The only way i can see that water got in there was over. And that means over a foot of water in the boat! How well does the livewell work in the Sportsman's? We're debating wether or not were gonna have to put our big livewell in it. How has everybody got their rod racks set up? We have about ten surf rods, eight drop rods and a couple bait rods that we need to make a rack for that will keep them out of the way yet handy. Don't suggest putting rod racks on the outside of the helm cause my dad WILL NOT do that. It has six rod holders on the splash board but if we get a fish on that decides to go around the boat we'll have to play "move all the rods to the other side, then move them back when the fish turns" We've done that in our V20 and its not fun. It has a bimini top and that what affects our rod rack placement the most. I tried to put a picture of our rod rack in our V20 on here but i'm not sure if it worked.

[macojoe]

Decals, ck ebay if not you might have to have them made?

Water, thats anyones guess??

Rod holder for 20 rods, bring less rods! Put the boat rods and bait rods in the cuddy and leave the surf rodshome, your on a boat

Did I say surf fish don't count!:p

[jasoncooperpcola]

When your boats name is "Reel Poor" going out with five rods looks bad. But not when you got them all, especially with two Penn 80's on the transom!

[jasoncooperpcola]

Here's a picture of the decals i need.

[THEFERMANATOR]

I know that I've worked on a couple of 248/250's, and the fiberglass seams under the water tank seem to be a trouble area with delamination. Water seems to come in from the anchor area and runs down in. As MJ said, watch Ebay for decals. As for the rod racks, we always just kept them on one of the quarter births when not in use.

[jasoncooperpcola]

Thanks, Ferm. We pulled the water tank out and are planning to use that area for our anchor rode storage. We are planning to put a hawse pipe for the rope to go through. Does anybody have any recomendations for an anchor roller. Wherever i mount the anchor roller its gonna have to be strong enough to break an anchor loose. I'll try to take a picture of the bow area of the 250 tomorrow. This is a picture of our curretn setup on our V20.

[macojoe]

I had a roller like shown in the picture, and was fine, once in a while the anchor would get stuck and you had to give it a little push.

Hamer and irslot bought tilting rollers, so when you undid the rope the weightof the anchor would tilt it down to the water and off she go real easy!!
If I decide to add one to thenewboat I will use a tilting roller.

[phatdaddy]

Jason, you should be able to go to a local sign shop with a pic of the decals & they could reproduce them for you. if you can get a pic with a ruler in it. that will help.

[Monkey Butler]

Jason,

Do you have a forward bilge pump? If so is it in the compartment you are talking about? When I first got my Sportsman I saw where the forward pump was and said, why is that there? I couldn't see how water would get there. Then one time just after I hauled the boat out at the ramp I stopped short a a red light and looked in my side mirror to see a stream of water gushing out the side of my boat onto a car stopped beside it! Good thing it was hot and he had his AC on! Obviously bilge water was able to freely flow up to the front.

[jasoncooperpcola]

When we got ours last year, the forward compartment was full of water. The boat was in the water during hurricane Dennis, and has sat in a vacant lot since, it didn't sink but i found a waterline in the bathroom 4 inches off the floor. I cant remember how far off the bottom the bathroom floor is, but i think its at least a foot. The forward bilge pump was burnt out.