Locating Bilge Pump for Safety & Sources
Locating a bilge pump for inside and outside operation: Only one boat have I seen with such an installation. The pump was mounted on the bridge deck bulkhead in the cockpit. The other side was over the sink in the Ariel's main cabin. Will look for an old photo we had.
Bilge pumps are sold in local chandleries and can be found in Defender, USBoat and West Marine catalogs. The little Urchin runs about $60 with a through deck mounting and removable handle. You might send a message to Theis (a forum member) and ask his opinion of the Urchin he purchased last year.
New Bilge Pump Installation (Commander)
I just bought my Commander (hull #270) in July. It has never had a bilge pump. For a number of reasons (not the least of which is the smelly black pool I just discovered in the depths of the bilge) I’m going to install an electric pump before it goes back in the water this Spring as well as carry a hand pump and a bucket.
After reading all the posts in this thread I'd like to ask for collective opinions on the best place and technique to mount the electric pump and direct the outlet.
I’ve been sailing for five years but this is my first boat so it’s OK to assume I don’t have much in the way of boat-smarts. My outboard has a generator and the boat also has a shore powered battery charger both feeding a relatively new battery.
Thanks,
Jerry McCann
Stagnant bilge water removal
I had the same problem in #45 when I got her , plus there was 6" of sludge at the bottom of the sump.Smelled like a skunk had died in there .
1st , get a wet/dry shopvac and suck all the water and crap out ( it will just clog a bilge pump).
2nd , pour in a gal of clean water and some pinesol or Simple Green or whatever and scrub with a toilet brush (long handled).
3rd , vacumn and rinse & repeat 'till she is sweet smelling .
With the vac you can get it completely dry , bilge pump will always leave a quart or 2 down there .
Bilge pump as downwind siphon?
Prior to heading downwind this afternoon on my return trip to Santa Cruz, I was roaring along close hauled on a port tack. By my GPS I was making 5-9 to 6.2 knots with steady twenty knots of wind gusting higher.I had been below messing with my GPS and a chart while my self-steering lines did the work. All was dry below then.
I ran dead downwind for a while with the main up full and a class jib. I know that I was doing better than 8 knots with the swell and wind directly behind me, but I couldn't leave the tiller long enough to check my GPS. I eventually had to head for Santa Cruz. With a gusty 20+ mph wind on my port bow I was heeled over to 40 degrees. However when I finally slipped in behind the point where the water was calm, I once again went below to discover that the cabin sole and lots of other stuff was drenched. My deck shoes, which I had left below, looked like they had been swimming.
I lifted a hatch board, and the bilge was 3/4 full of murky water. When I had been heeled to 40 degrees, the water must have come out of the bilge and run up the hull to flood the locker beneath the starboard settee and even further up the hull to the opening at the forward end of the bench into the wet locker, which I suppose is intended to drain the settee bench. Unfortunately, this time it worked in reverse to drench the starboard cushion. The bottoms of the lifejackets in my closet were also soaked. Also drenched were my tools, fasteners and other goods stored in the locker underneath the settee. It was a mess.
With the manual bilge pump, which is mounted in my cabin beneath the companionway hatch, I quickly pumped the water out of the bilge. Satisfied that if I was sinking, I wasn't sinking very fast, I headed leisurely into the harbor.
After searching for a source, I concluded that the water must have come from something other than a deck hardware or hull-deck seam leak. There was too much water for one thing, and secondly the mess beneath the settee cushion looked a lot like bilge water and not so much like a fresh leak from above. The cowl vent on my bow was my first thought, but the anchor rode directly beneath the vent was dry as was the anchor locker as a whole. The V berth area and its raised floor were totally dry, as were all of the shelves in the V Berth and the shelves above the settees. The chainplates were dry. Only the teak main salon floor and starboard side of the boat up to the height of he settee cushion were wet. Even the pillows that sit against the hull on the settee cushion were dry.
Since the lazarette locker fills with water when running downwind and on a broad reach, and on a close reach under certain conditions, I checked the bulkhead separating that locker from the rest of the boat, but I could not find any openings in the bulkhead that could have leaked water into the bilge.
My suspicion is that the manual bilge pump is the culprit. The bilge pump pumps the bilge water overboard through the transom. The exit port is rather low on the port side of the transom, but above normal water level. I do not know whether that is standard or a modification. I do not see a specification or drawing for one in the manual, but the discussion about bilge pump installation in the manual makes me suspect that my bilge pump is other than original.
There could be a break in the line, or the system could be installed in such a manner that allows water to siphon from the sea through the transom into the bilge. My bilge pump outflow is mounted through the port side of the transom. Since the port side of the boat was dry, a break in the line is unlikely, but I will check the line. After pumping the bilge dry and letting the boat sit for a couple of hours the bilge remained dry. Of course the transom is above water when the boat is docked. My bilge is normally bone dry.
I would think that a manual bilge pump installation be made in such a way that even pressurized water will not flow from the opening in the transom into the bilge. Excuse the ignorance, but don't these things have a bult-in antu-siphon device? Tomorrow I am going to try to simulate this with a garden hose. Has anyone else experienced this phenomenon? Or does anyone out there have other suggestions as to how my bilge might have filled with seawater? I have read a few postings on bilge pumps on this site, but they did not answer my questions.
Installing a Manual Bilge Pump in The Cockpit
I have read the posts on bilge pumps on this site and the Ariel Manual on the subject of cockpit-mounted manual bilge pumps.
I have decided to add a second manual bilge pump to my Ariel. I want to add that pump in the cockpit, and I suppose the best place for me will be on one of the sidewalls of the cockpit. It probably makes the most sense to do that reasonably close to the forward part of the cockpit. I have read the Ariel manual, which recommends the bridge deck or bridge deck wall, but that forces me to place the body of the flush-mounted bilge pump and one to one and a half inch tubing in the cabin where it would be in the way and would be unsightly in my opinion. If I understand my boat, there is a double wall there, so the installation would be more complicated than placing a flush mounted pump in a sidewall of the cockpit, which places the body of the pump in the cockpit locker.
I don't relish the idea of chopping a 3.5 inch hole in my boat to accommodate the flush mounted bilge pump.
Now for the questions:
1. Does anyone out there have what you consider to be the ideal, or at least the most pragmatic solution to adding a manual cockpit bilge pump?
2. How have you sealed a flush mounted manual pump to prevent leaks?
3. Does your method actually prevent leaks?
4. If you have a higher volume pump, how many strokes per minute can you handle without fatiguing quickly at that volume?
The choice sees to be the higher volume ~ 20 gallons per minute with a 1.5 inch line, or lower volume ~10 gallons per minute with 1.0 inch line, or forgetting the whole thing and buying the sublimely expensive 30 gallons per minute Edson versatile and portable pump suitable for pumping your bilge, holding tank or washing your anchor or boat down. In the latter case, you would not have to worry about mounting the pump, since it is mounted to a board and is designed to move around the boat.
5. Here is an idea: is it worthy?
The very expensive Edson portable pump model 290017 (see West Marine ecatalog) gave me the idea of buying a much less expensive standard surface mounted 20 GPM bilge pump and mounting it to a board that would slip and clamp into the opening between the cockpit and the lazarette hatch to be used as an emergency bilge pump or wash-down pump, and could also be carried around the boat to be used at other locations. By hooking the pump up with a quick connect/ disconnect fitting to a bilge hose in the lazarette locker, one could have a readily available bilge pump to use in the cockpit when needed without having to chop more holes in the boat, and at the same time one would have a handy pump to use as an anchor wash-down pump on the foredeck. In the bilge pump mode, the outflow pipe could used the OB well as some writers have suggested they are now doing with their fixed mounted bilge pumps, or could have a transom-mounted through hull with a second quick disconnect. I have a one-inch plastic "cistern fitting" designed for a bait tank that has an adapter that reduces to a standard garden hose fitting. This unit is suitable for mounting through the lazarette cockpit bulkhead and connects on the bilge side to one inch bilge tubing. I am already using one of these units on my bilge pump line. That pump is mounted on the aft wall of the cabin above the galley shelf.
6. Also, has anyone installed and used the Plastmo Cockpit Bilge pump? I am not so sure about the strength of the handle. It looks like a good concept otherwise.
Mounting a Plastimo 925 in the cockpit
I have purchased the Plastimo 925 as a back up for the electric pump in my bilge. I intend to mount it in the cockpit, probably in the starboard side up forward. As to the concerns about the handle on this pump, the blue plastic tip in the picture is just a cover for the stainless handle that extends through the body. The unit is pretty stout.
I know the bridge deck is the recommended location, but my compass is there, and I prefer it on centerline for visibility (and because that is where a compass belongs). :)
Do any that have experience with cockpit mounted pumps have thoughts on the merits of placement forward or aft? I am thinking forward would be easier to use, but more likely to hit the back of the legs where as aft might be handily out of the way.....
..... ....both in daily use, and when needed. :rolleyes: