The yard may well have vacuumed the water out but it always takes time to fully 
drain down. By all means dry it now and come back in a week or so but you may 
well still find water there, less, but still some water. 

If there is any ventilation down there at all it will dry on its own - 
eventually. I always my cabin bilge trap open during the winter or if we are 
leaving the boat for long periods.

I can not answer the bit about the floor rotting because we do not know what 
its made of (having seen Broads cruisers with strawboard floors looking like 
porridge in the bilge in the past).

If you are really concerned about rot and drying the ballast your best bet 
would be to try to organise a permanent vent at both ends of the bilge in a 
manner that gives you a through draft. If it has an electric fridge then 
fitting a fan to the fridge control box to draw cool air up from the bilge 
would then help the fridge and also ventilate the bilge.

Tony Brooks

--- In [email protected], "rigdence" <christ...@...> wrote:
>
> Thanks all for your input, and Tony for your diagnostics.
> 
> The boat is a semi trad, and the bilge is definately separate.  2005, I think 
> and otherwise immaculate.
> 
> The cause of the water is allegedly a leak (only when hot) in the calorifier, 
> which has since been remedied but the boatyard who fixed it didn't bother to 
> vac up after themselves and told the owners it would dissapate by itself 
> (which, knowing who it was, is believable).  
> 
> It was only 5 months ago, so not a long term problem.
> 
> Concensus seems to be not to worry, but check with surveyor.
> 
> Thanks, guys.  We're finding an awful lot of frogs in this search, but this 
> particuar boat seems quite the princess/prince.  Another booked to look at 
> tomorrow.
> 
> Chris
> 
> --- In [email protected], "rigdence" <christine@> wrote:
> >
> > Hi folks -
> > 
> > We've just looked at a 2nd-hand boat today, any comments about whether 
> > finding about an inch of water in a cabin bilge is an issue or not?
> > 
> > If so, what would you do about it?
> > 
> > Chris (& Terry)
> > www.rigdenage.co.uk/canals
> >
>


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