great to hear everybody got out safe. sorry to hear about the boat.

me and some friends almost had the same thing happen to us. my friend was towing his 18 ft alum starcraft, and some guy run a stop sign, and he hit him. the boat slammed forward hitting the back of his van. but the only damage was a dent in one side of the front of the boat. it looked good. we went to erie and started to drift. i climbed out on the bow and started to fish. my friend said get back in the boat. i looked and water was already up in the floor. we started the motor but the pullies and belts were down in the water and threw water on the distributor and killed the engine. we had the sump pump running and one guy on the 5 gallon bucket. another guy was using a couple of the big pop bottles. i got the distributor dried out and we had the water down alittle so we started the engine again. it wouldnt plane off but it did lift the front of the boat alittle. on the way in we finelly caught up enough that we planed off. then when we got in and slowed down the water was pouring in again. we got the boat on the trailer. we started looking to see where the water was coming in. there was a big crack on both sides of the boat in the front just below the water line when sitting in the water.

the wreck had caused the metal to stress but not crack. then on the ride out in the choppy water had caused the metal to crack. we had about a 2' crack on both sides.

all i can say is thank god for 5 gallon buckets
sherman