Actually, I inspected and water tested all of the hull-to-bulkhead and deck-to-bulkhead areas in my lazarette locker. They are tight and well sealed. The locker had been stripped and glass had been added to extend the well before I bought the boat. It was left unpainted. I painted the locker. What took me some time to figure out was that PVC tube through which the loran antenna ran was not sealed, as it appeared to be. The white stuff that I mistook for caulking compound was actually only rigging tape. That unsealed PVC pipe was responsible for my leak. Now that it has been removed, and the hole in the bulkhead has been filled with epoxy, it no longer leaks.
I took the boat offshore again today, and ran with one rail or the other down for hours. There were absolutely no leaks, despite the lazarette locker sloshing full of seawater.
Now as to the bilge pump line. I did add two loops: one in the cockpit locker, which I do not plan to vent, and one in the lazarette locker, which I may vent. Now a word on raised loops: When an Ariel is sailing with the rail down up is not the same as up when the boat is uporight. It is something else. A loop toward the centerline of the boat is actually above the water line when the boat is heeled to 45 degrees, whereas a verticle loop adjacent to the hull is under water. So my loop in the port cockpit locker is horizontal and drains well when the boat is sitting on the level, but it is "up" when the boat is heeled on a port tack. Unfortunately it is "down" when the boat is one a starboard tack. My lazarette locker loop has both horizontal and vertical elements. So it is up when the boat is on the level, and in some regard it is up at any point of sail I guess. That's the loop that I would vent, but the only logical place to vent it would be on the vertical element…Ooops that vertical element could be below sea level on a 45 degree. Then how about the horizontal loop? Oops, again, that would be down on a starboard tack. Am I just not getting it?
Theis, I am also curious as to why you recommend against one-way valves in bilge pump lines. The one-way valve that I used in my new line is identical to the valves in my manual bilge pump. The only difference is that it is in the lazarette locker, where I could quickly disconnect the hose clamps if it became blocked for some reason, and just allow the pump to pump into the lazarette locker. Most of the power boaters on my street to whom I have spoken believe in one way valves.
Now the loop idea makes a lot of sense, but I did test the one-way valves in my bilge pump by pressuring the line from the transom with a garden hose. I blew one of the valves backwards without damaging it permanently, but the system would not permit water to get past the bilge pump, because the second valve held, and the hose that I was using was forcefully ejected from the transom with my rather forceful hand attached. The addition of one more one way valve in my system just ads that much more assurance that the line will not accept seawater if the transom is down. There would have to be enough force coming up that line the wrong way to blow three valves in series. The additional valve in combination with a vented loop in the lazarette aft of the valve makes a lot of sense to me, and that is how I have set mine up. I just have to figure out how and where to vent that loop.
So in summary, if one-way valves in bilge pump lines are a bad idea, why do Bilge pump manufacturers install one-way valves in diaphragm style manual pumps? This is a serious question, because some day our lives might depend on whether we do or do not have one of these valves in your bilge pump lines. Street knowledge is usually a good thing to listen to, but I like to understand the logic, and frankly I don't in this case. I do understand that an object could block a valve, but again this valve is identical to those in my bilge pump.
And finally, those deck scuppers that are glassed into the hull in the cockpit lockers must have leaked at one point in my boat, because someone slathered sections of them with some black stuff, which I assume is probably epoxy of some sort. They are not leaking now.
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