I had a similar problem with my boat as well. On my BT166, there is a drain hole around the rim of the door. There is normally a tube that is hooked up to this drain hole inside the compartment area, but My tube had broke-off. Once I replaced or repaired this and hooked it back up, the problem was solved. I haven’t had any issues.

I also turned one of the Livewells into Dry storage by plugging the drain holes and taping off the overflow tubes.

As for the regular storage bins, I would check out the drain tubes to see if they are plugged or broken. Not sure what to say about your rod lockers. I haven’t had an issue with them.

Thanks for the reply’s. The 11p work tremendously to get the boat out of the hole, but it did hit the rev limiter with 1/8 throttle left. I think I’ll keep it for when I know the boat is loaded or have to maneuver heavy waves. (Had it on a windy day at Red lake, and the extra power worked great! The dealer swapped it out at no charge so there was no issue there. I will be trying a second 12P prop to use for light loads and see how that works.

Second question. The original 13P props I tried were 14″ diameter Merc blades. I have seen smaller diameter props like 13 3/8, 13 1/2. Would a smaller diameter prop help get more RPM’s out of the motor by chance, or is it all pitch related?