Leaking from Ballast Bags

[lakeeriemonster]

I'm wondering how common it is to experience leakage into the bilge from ballast tanks / bags? I haven't spent much time trying to isolate where in the system, but as soon as we fill up the ballast the bilge pump fires up.

For now we've just lived with it, but I wanted to hear from others on how common this is and where leaks tend to happen. For us it's not a big deal and I assumed this is a common issue. But if that's not the case, I"m going to work harder to isolate the issue and fix it.

FWIW, we do have piggyback bags on all hard tanks. I did have an earlier rear ballast bag that developed a leak around the fitting and ended up replacing.

[hal2814]

The fittings leaking is far more common than the actual bag leaking. You should also check things that are submerged when you add ballast. In my case I found a leak from the thru bolts on my swim platform that only happened at full ballast because otherwise they’re above water.