Footnote:
While sailing with crew last weekend, it became apparent that all of the above did not solve the problem. Given that had crew, I took most everything out of the starboard cockpit locker while on a port tack and crawled down into the locker. Imagine my surprise to discover that a fitting in which my Loran antenna wire ran through the bulkhead between the lazarette and starboard cockpit locker was spouting water like a fire hose every time we dipped the starboard rail. This particular fitting predated my ownership. I had looked at it some time ago, and assumed that it was caulked with some sort of marine sealant. When I destroyed the thing by removing it along with the antenna wire, I discovered that it was nothing but a piece of schedule 40 PVC pipe glued in place with an unidentifiable somewhat pliable substance that appeared to be glue. The pipe itself was absolutely hollow with no sealant in it or around the wire. The lazarette end was taped first with white rigging tape, which I originally mistook for sealant while peering through the cockpit locker end. The second layer of tape was duct tape, and the third layer was rigging tape. The final layer was electrical tape. The tape was ancient. There was no fitting on the lazarette end to prevent water intrusion and no sealant, but merely the tape. Since I never had leaks until a week or so ago, I never thought to examine it more closely. The PVC pipe entered the lazarette locker behind the portable six-gallon fuel tank. Apparently while replacing the tank after refueling, I must have nudged the pipe in a manner that broke the seal on the tape, and so the next time I dipped the rail, I had flooding both through the aforementioned two small, unsealed holes and through this PVC pipe. A substantial amount of water was coming through the pipe.
My outboard well has been modified to accommodate an older version of the Honda 7.5 four-stroke OB motor. The added sloped extension on the aft end functions as a scoop at hull speed forcing gallons of water up into the lazarette locker and this fills the downwind side of the locker to a level above this PVC pipe, when the excess water spills back into the well. Every time that water surged upwards, this PVC fitting would squirt water into the cockpit locker.
There is now no longer hole there at all. West Systems epoxy and a few pieces of glass cloth made short work of it. So apparently the bilge pump was not at fault, but it's nice to know that the bilge pump line and pump are newly upgraded. I also now have a loop and backflow prevention valve in the lazarette locker. If that valve jams, it would be a simple thing to remove the hose clamp on the uphill side of the valve and pump bilge water into the lazarette locker (or preferably clear the blockage and reattach the hose.
I ran today offshore close hauled for about an hour on each tack today with full sails in about 20+ knots of wind with a moderate swell. At hull speed + I shipped a fair amount of water into the lazarette through the OB well, but no water entered the cockpit locker or other areas of the boat, so it appears that the leaking PVC pipe was the culprit.
Hopefully sealing the hole where that PVC pipe once ran did solve my leak problem, but my research on bilge pumps will probably take me to a second manual pump in the cockpit.
I have also been reading the very interesting posts on this site related to sealing the well, and I am working on a better mousetrap for that little problem which is the root of many other problems in Ariels in general.
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