Mo, we were anchored at Santa Barbara Island one night in an old 26' wooden gaffer. There were 2 thru hulls one for the cockpit and the other for what was the head which was plugged as my bud converted to a bucket, this was in the late 60's. The boat was equipped with a pot belly stove for cooking and warmth~really nice~ and one bunk. My buddy was sleeping in a bag on the bunk and I on the floorboards next to the stove. It was a rocky night and forward where the head WAS was now the anchor locker of which 3 were still stored and rattling away as we rolled around. Sometime around 2~3 in the am I woke up because I was getting wet
. I yelled and grabbed a flashlight only to see an anchor sitting where the plug was and a nice stream of water gushing in. My buddy grabbed a tapered plug and immediately went over the side and found the hole as I was shinning the light on the HOLE. A couple of good smacks and we were OK with just a tiny dribble. We pumped her out with the Whale manual Gusher and once we figured the plug was OK we went back to try and sleep. In the am when the sun came up we removed the plug and reinserted it with a small towel wrapped around it from the outside. We could secure the towel from the inside with some line and sailed home the next day. We had to pump about every 5~6 hours to keep the water below the shallow boards~no worries. The boat was hauled 2 days after we got back so my bud could get a weekend rate to do his own repairs.
We didn't even get the wood for the stove wet so we warmed right up after tossing in a few pieces of oak.
Dave Neptune