Sink sinks ship

[pbryant]

I'm considering removing the "T" fitting and hose that connects the port cockpit drain to the sink. I'll appreciate it if anyone can sanity check my observation:

Since the top of the sink is lower that the top of the cockpit, if I take a boarding wave astern that fills the cockpit, a substantial portion of the water will drain up out of the sink and into the cabin. If the cockpit gets really full from multiple swampings in short succession, and my bilge pumps can't keep up, then that could be a vessel-sinking event. Besides, I dislike being knee deep in seawater in my cabin.

Have I got that right? Has anyone had their cockpit filled only to find large quantities of water entering the cabin through the sink? I hear it gurgling whenever I'm out in swells. And that makes me very nervous. I'm sailing in the Pacific, and we all know the Ariel doesn't have vast amounts of freeboard astern.

Since I only use the sink as a convenient receptacle for holding sail ties and winch handles, and since the sea is only a few feet away into which I can toss dishwater (I wash my dishes in my multipurpose bailing/washing bucket anyway), I see no point in having a functioning sink. As you might guess, I'm not the type to put curtains in the windows (no more so than I'd put up curtains in a Ferrari) and I am much more concerned with seaworthiness than with domestic niceties aboard.

[ebb]

Mr pbryant, if you are cruising and you still have the original no seacock
glassed tube thru hulls....
may I suggest that at your first port of convenience
you get the strongest rubber hose you can find and rehose the cockpit so that they drain straight thru.

Just one of those thruhull holes will sink your boat in 20 minutes.
Those hoses ALWAYS have water in them almost up the cockpit deck.

Discard the T-fitting and run another hose from sink drain to a bucket.
This hose can be more flexible (cheaper) so you can take the hose to where you jam the bucket to keep it from tipping....
then use the bucket to toss gray water.

Taking water below thru companionway, hatch, port-light window, or 1 1/2" hole in the hull
you already are facing a huge problem.
There isn't a bilge pump in the world that will handle an onslaught like that.... you are on your own.
No bilge pump can push out a flood of water, no matter what hole it comes from.
Besides your electricity will have shorted out by then.
And you'll have to use your wash water bucket to toss the ocean back out.

Carry spare softwood cone plugs.
Some large pillows to jam in the hatches and windows.
Also some underwater setting epoxy repair paste.
And a couple more buckets.

[Bill]

The sink drain is one of the "Maint Alerts" on the home page. Here's a quick fix until you put a seacox on both the sink drain and the cockpit drain:

"The galley sink's basket drain assembly can corrode. When it fails, the drain hose will fall below the water line and begin siphoning water into the boat. The boat will likely sink if the condition is not discovered. Tie-up the drain hose to prevent it from falling should the sink basket assembly fail."

[pbryant]

Thanks Bill. Ebb's advice will also solve the "flopping sink hose" problem.

[pbryant]

Thanks Ebb. All good advice!

I've also found that epoxy putty, the stuff sold in tubes at Home Depot that you knead up before applying, works great for plugging thruhulls when stuffed in from the outside. Shortly after buying Ariel #75, the seacock for the port side thruhull to the (illegal) head failed while I was underway. I had added to your list above 1) a wetsuit and 2) a sea anchor (the water was 190 feet deep). Both got used so I could go over the side on a nasty day (Murphy's law of meteorology) with a tether tied to a shroud chainplate while I felt around (at night) to find the thruhull opening and stuff it with epoxy putty.

[ebb]

What a story! Had no idea that rope stuff will actually stick underwater - and on a dark and stormy night!

The idea that one would take Part A from one jar and mix it with Part B from another while sinking is ludicrous, of course. Am trying to make light of going to sea in an unprepared boat. I'm overboard on the issue.

Once water gets in to the cabin area of an Ariel or Commander, we are the captain of a sinking ship. A foot of water in the cabin will be all but impossible to get back out, especially if we are still in the situation that put it there. Even if it's been stopped from coming in........ How low is the boat in the water......... one comber in the cockpit...............

Am preparing litlgull for cruising without a backup liferaft.
Don't expect that I'll be pumping up the
kayak dinghy to float off from the sinlking boat
while tossing buckets of water out of the cabin into the half filled cockpit.
Anyway, I'm the kind of person that requires a cup of tea before getting into a project like that.
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Just looked up epoxy sticks. Metal filled aimed at plumbers. There are marine versions as well, but there can't be any reason for spending more for what seems to be the same product. I would guess some brands knead easier than others. Some may stick better in cold salt water.
JBWaterWeld, Starbrite, Everfix, SuperGlue are some brand names. To keep sticks in the bosun's bag, I'll look for a brand that looks like a more airtight package. One stand out seems to be ANDAX EP-AQUA. Fast set, fiberglass reinforced. 20-30 min working life, sets in minutes, total cure 1hr. Maybe store longterm in a couple ziplock bags? Who carries it?

[pbryant]

The only downside of epoxy putty is that it starts to set up quickly, so you really need to have a plan before you start kneading it up. However, I found that it sets up more slowly when it's in 50 degree water. I jammed it in with as much pressure as I could muster (adrenalin helps) - filling both the thruhull hole and the seaward side of the seacock - and the plug held for months without ever leaking a drop.

When the whirring of my bilge pump announced the leak, I started out by removing the hose to the (since removed) head and jamming a wooden bung in the hose port on the seacock. I was puzzled over the leak because the seacock was in the closed position. That's when I discovered that the bronze seacock valve itself (a ball type) was leaking around the seam where the ball and handle rotate. The only solution was to plug the leak from the outside. I've never tried hammering a wooden bung into fiberglass (it seems like a very bad idea) and swinging a hammer underwater while swells were shoving me against the side of the boat. So I'd say the epoxy putty saved my boat.

But I digress. Am I right that more than a very small amount of water in the cockpit will cause water to shoot out of the sink? What would happen if I: 1) plugged both cockpit drains, 2) filled the cockpit with water, 3) removed the plug on the port side drain? Would water shoot out of the sink until the cockpit drained to a depth of about six inches of water? If so, that seems like a fatal flaw in the design that would make the Ariel unseaworthy. Maybe for now I'll be proactive and plug the bottom of the sink with epoxy putty until she's hauled out. I've had occasions at sea when I was literally swimming in the cockpit in boats that had much more freeboard than an Ariel.

[ebb]

Hooray for epoxy putty ! ! !

That bloody T-fitting is an after thought.
The c'pit drains MUST be separate from the sink.
As you show - it is an accident waiting to happen.
Sink MUST have its own drain on a seacock.
On A388 I have the sink on a massive 1 1/2" Marelon flanged seacock
- because I don't want to trust what the marine industry sells as bronze for underwater use.
If you manufacture bronze seacocks that have ZINC in the alloy, you are selling brass seacocks.
Salt water will eventually turn them into a sieve. Especially if you park in a modern marina.

If you will keep the c'pit drains where Pearson has them, imco you should put seacocks on them.
[BUT that will change the angle for the hose connection and you will have to use a more flexible hose that is probably not rated for underwater use. Gotcha! And that's why Pearson did not put in seacocks, as they should have, in the first place.]
The sea gods insist that any underwater hole MUST have a seacock on it.
I remodeled & oversized the cockpit drains on A338 and did not add proper seacocks because my bright idea couldn't use them.
Won't recommend what I did. The short piece of exhaust huse you'd want to use would be too short to make the contortions from the cockpit drain to mate with seacocks mounted normally on the hull. [May possibly cross-drain the hose: left side drain to right side hull, etc. But you'd loose access to the space under the cockpit.]
But I do advise that since the Pearson thru-holes are a foot and a half or two feet under the waterline,
you MUST have an easy way to shut the holes off!
A softwood bung isn't a very good backup for the glassed in fiberglass tubes that Pearson put there.
Altho a quick setting epoxy stick might be. The Pearson glass tube to hull interface should probably be reinforced by the owner with glass & epoxy.
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Called up the Andax people and asked where I might find their Aqua epoxy stick. "Haven't any idea." was the response. Red flag tells me these are relabelers who provide products for internet catalogs. An underwater fiberglass reinforced putty sounds like a good idea to me and maybe there is a reputable brand that formulates the stick that way and touts it on the label. I'll look for it. Wouild not use a metal filled epoxy stick.

Underwater curing epoxy is a MUST HAVE in the emergency kit.

Imco, on the face of it, paying extra for epoxy stick in a marine blister pack is an easy way to assure that the material will work in cold salt water. There may be one stick better than the others. Better sticking - easier kneading. But given how much alike they all seem to be, whether aquarium, pool, construction, marine marketed....they're probably a single formula all made by a single outfit in Taiwan and packaged for each single vendor world wide.
There are Fast and Slow set sticks. Slow is still fast at 15 to 20 minutes - count down from the time we start kneading the sides together. Every brand says the same thing.
Would keep a used toothbrush or toothbrush-like stainless steel utility brush (and a piece of plastic 'steel wool') in the bag with the epoxy stick to help clean the unknown surface the putty will be pressed against. And single use rubber gloves for kneading.
Warnings include that to get the product to stick it must be applied to a "clean surface" with enough PRESSURE to displace water....especially underwater.

Imco an emergency repair might very well be attempted from inside the boat where the scenario will have water squirting in under pressure! Hard to figure what the kit would include..... That plastic steel wool might make a pretty good backer when forced into a modest sized hole or crack - to force the putty onto - to get it to stay in place.....? Clamping will be out of the question!

Might keep an eye out for specific use marine/under water emergency epoxy stick (glass or kevlar reinforced) - not just something used to mount coral-rocks in an aquarium and repackaged for impuilse buying at a marine store checkout.