Bilge pump advice General Forum Forums

not sure what model but it is a whale I believe and is mounted in the port forward side wall of the cockpit foot well. You pump it horizontally in a for and aft motion and the hose runs forward underneath the cockpit foot well floor and then down the forward engine bulkhead on the portside of the companionway and down to a scrum box in the bilge. discharge line runs aft against the bottom of the foot well floor and on to the transom where it goes out through a through hull above the water line.

When we are using the boat it will typically have an inch or so of water in the bilge most of the time. If we are not using the engine though it will typically dry out and have no water in there. We don't have a small bilge pump that is flush down against the bilge floor so the bilge pumps don't pull it all out. Both the electric and the manual bilge pumps have big scrum boxes on them that leave an inch or two of water in the lower bilge under the engine after they start to suck air. I have wanted to but havent gotten around to yet pulling everything out of there and re-doing it as well as putting a third small bilge pump in that is the first to turn on when water is in the bilge and will pump it down to less than a 1/4 inch. Only if it can't keep up will the water level rise and the bigger pumps even come on.

Water that gets in the bilge comes from five major places on our boat.

1. Filling the water tanks the overflow/vent lines will spit water out in the bilge and one of the fill lines has a leak in it. It doesn't hurt anything but will put a few gallons of water in the bilge when we fill the tank. I have the new fill hose but haven't installed it yet.

2. Defrosting and cleaning the fridge will let water drain out of it into the bilge. This I don't like as it lets a little dirty water down there that could cause odors. I haven't done anything about it yet though. In reality we only defrost and clean it a couple times a year and the water isn't that nasty.

3. If the engine is running and prop shaft turning we get the small leak from the stuffing box that is the hall mark of a correctly working old school stuffing box. One day I will probably go to a drip-less style but till then I will live with it.

4. We have a weird leak on starboard that once in a while will put a few cups of water in the boat with a heavy rain. Not sure why or where it is but sometimes it doesn't leak and sometimes it does.. just weird but doesn't hurt anything where it is running through the boat. As we work on deck hardware we keep making sure to bed everything well and one day will probably find the leak and fix it without even knowing it was the leak. 🙂

5. Water coming in with the anchor chain or water over the bow or sometimes heavy rain would get into the chain locker and then drain through the boat to the bilges. We stopped this by installing a sump and bilge pump in the sump under the floor in the v-berth. We then ran a 1.5 inch hose from the lower anchor locker to the sump. The fitting that hose attaches to also totally seals the anchor lockers from the rest of the boat. This has left our upper bilges bone dusty dry most of the time for the last 4 years since we did it.

 Check all your through hulls and sea cocks to make sure there are no drips or leaks from any of them. Watch the bilges during a heavy rain to see if water is running down from the upper bilges to the lower one under the engine. Check your pressure water system and pump. At one time we had a drip from the pump in our system that was pretty steady. It would cause the pump to run every 15 to 20 minutes for a second or two on its own. That one is pretty obvious that something is wrong though as your pump is turning on while no one is using water 🙂

hope this helps a little. I think it is pretty comprehensive but to be honest my brain is pretty fried and I could be missing something 🙂

scott

The bilge under the engine is the real bilge. The area forward and above that I call the upper bilge where the fuel and water tanks are. Yes the bilge under the engine can hold a lot of water. I would guess hundreds of gallons. Thats a lot of water to get out with a sponge 🙂 lol

I don't have a bilge pump in the bilge.. just the hoses running from manual or diaphragm electric bilge pumps that are behind the batteries up high in the eninge compartment. I plan on adding a little small bilge pump on the end of the board that I have that holds the sensor/switch for the electric bilge pumps. They are pretty big, though not huge and leave an inch or so of water in the bilge. I think a real small one on the end of the board that can suck it almost perfectly dry with the big bilge pumps switch just above it or near the top of it beside it. So that they only come on if water gets past it.

If its all going to be apart and easy access that is the time to do it...it no fun at all in the best of times to access that space.

scott