cockpit drains.....into the engine room not over board

I have noticed that over the last few months that if we get a heavy dew there will be water in the engine room pan. Well when it rained the other day the pan was about  half full.

The other day I was at the boat when it was raining just a bit. I looked into the engine room to see where the was was coming from. I saw water running down the two cockpit drain hoses then into the engine room pan. Then it occurred to me that this is how the original Volvo engine came to rust out from the bottom. The previous owners never took the water out of the engine room pan when it filled up. They just let the engine sit for years in what ever water would collect there. Poor little engine had only 45 hours on it too. After seeing the amount of water that collected just from a light rain it all made sense.

Here is what the backing wood looked like.

Here is what it looked like when I removed it. A wet soggy mess that just fell apart.

And now the new improved version.

I removed and cleaned the drain and re-caulked both sides of it and made a new wood backer. I didn't have any epoxy with me so I just painted it with three coats of rustoleum enamel. That should hold until I can make new ones coated with epoxy.

It rained that night a good bit. When I went to the boat the next day the engine room pan was as dry as I left it. So no more leaks from the cockpit drains.

Update: As I read what I wrote it sounds like the cockpit drains run into the engine room pan. They do not, they run into thru-hulls. But the water leaked so bad the water ran on the outside of the hoses and not the inside. Thus all the water in the pan.  Sorry for the confussion.

Thanks Skip!