Emptying And Cleaning Water Tank

graceglenda1 · Sep 15, 2011

Alan ...
I took the time to completely remove my tank ... scrub it out, treat it ... and replace complete w/ new lines ... I found that the lines to the galley also had settled "gunk" in them as well ... relatively cheap fix. I also added an in-line water filter ... which my dear wife credits for providing great tasting coffee!
Regards,
Tom
V1690

pjacobs55 · Sep 15, 2011

Hi Alan,
My personal preference is to avoid bleach coming anywhere near my drinking water containers.

The best way to drain the tank is to pull off one of the hoses on the two outlets. (One outlet goes to the head sink, which I removed, so I put a small valve on it for tank draining made easy.)

The draining water should find it's way past the batteries and into the bilge where it can be pumped overboard. It'll also flush out any debris that might be lurking under the floorboards.

For cleaning I use white vinegar. I pour a bottle into the empty tank and pump it through the lines to clean them. My original line was so black inside I hauled it and replaced it. The only difficult part was getting the line off and on the pump under the galley sink.

Use a vinegar-soaked towel and wipe down the inside of the tank by reaching in through the capped hole on the top. It's possible to reach all the corners if you have a long enough arm. If not, a short stick should do the trick.

Finally, get a hose gun in there and spray out all the crud and vinegar, letting it drain out from the opening where you took the hose off.

Re-connect the hose and fill-up with fresh water and flush your lines, drain the tank once more, and refill.

I do this every couple of years, or if I get a tank full of bad water from someplace.

Hope this helps.

Peter
#1331 'Sin Tacha'

pjacobs55 · Sep 15, 2011

A note about chlorine:
Google "chlorine carcinogenic effects" for more info.

dougpol1 · Sep 16, 2011

The last boat I owned had a 250 gal water tank. I put bleach in the
tank and used a filter to get it back out. For drinking AND showers. If
we filled up on a city water supply It has enough chlorine (bleach) to
keep anything from growing in the tank and it was filtered at the
facet. If you filter water before it gets to the tank there is a
possibility of typhoid growing in the tank if it is in anyway exposed to
it. I rather have can cer way later than typhoid right
now. Doug

groundhogyh · Sep 17, 2011

My bilge pump comes out a through hull on the back transom.
rb

tiempo2010 · Sep 17, 2011

Alan

For a small maintenance pump emptying in the cockpit is fine - mine does as
well. But the larger pump, the one you depend on in an emergency should have
its own outlet through the hull or transom.

dougpol1 · Sep 17, 2011

My electric bilge pump empties in the cockpit but the hose is small
enough to push back in the cockpit drain. If I were taking water into
the cockpit .big seas or heavy rain I would just pull the hose back into
the cockpit so the seawater could more quickly drain through. This has
never happened. Doug

tiempo2010 · Sep 17, 2011

But if the boat was actually sinking you would want the bilge pump to exit
over the side directly.

pjacobs55 · Sep 19, 2011

Original equipment on a Vega is a small hand bilge pump just by the rudder stock, pumping into the cockpit. When not in use it looks like a 2 inch round bronze padeye, just to port of the rudder stock.Nicholas H. Walsh P.A.
111 Commercial St.
Portland ME 04101
207/772-2191
Fax 207/774-3940

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From: groundhog
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2011 12:48 PM
To: AlbinVega@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [AlbinVega] Re: Emptying And Cleaning Water Tank
My bilge pump comes out a through hull on the back transom.
rb

brockhaus77 · Sep 21, 2011

It seems that like many other things, bilge pump setups come in quite a variety in our Vegas. When I bought mine, it had a hand-operated pump (Whale?) (vertical lever through a diaphragm in the cockpit sole to port and right next to the rudder stock) which empties through a hole in the transom. I also had (and still have) an electric bilge pump with float switch, which ALSO has its own hole in the transom to discharge through. This seems overall preferable, but there is a rub: You have to use some loop with an anti-syphon valve somewhere along the long hose run from under the engine (deepest spot in the bilge) to the transom, because otherwise any of the "cheap" electric bilge pumps (e.g. Rule) will let all the water still sitting in the hose rush back into the bilge as soon as they shut of. So my hose runs from the pump up one side to an "intermediary high point" right underneath the cockpit sole, with a anti-syphon valve at that point, and then in a gentle swoop down and back up to the throughhull in the transom. That way, only the water in that first let up to the valve will come back to the bilge. (Before this, I used to have always a few " of standing water in my bilge!)

- Sebastian (VegaLyra 1060)

tiempo2010 · Sep 21, 2011

That is one solution. What I have done is install a small electric pump with
a check valve right after and it drains into the cockpit over a drain. This
pump is 500 gph and really just a maintenance pump. A larger electric, 1100
gph, is installed a bit higher and doesn't have a check valve, exiting
through the transom with a loop and anti-siphon jest before the exit.
Cockpit mounted manual as well of course.

SVFlyAway · Sep 21, 2011

When cruising it is hard to keep a dry bilge. However, when at the dock I do
by using a small wet/dry shop vac. I keep my bilge very dry using that as I
can get right to the very bottom that can't be done with a bilge pump.
Actually I have a dedicated dry vac too since I am building some cabinets on
the boat and always have a mess of some sort. The vacs I use are small --
most of the guys at the rigging shop carried a Snapper and that is what I
use. They are pretty cheap to buy.

dougpol1 · Sep 21, 2011

A good many years ago I turned on the bilge pump and pumped water. .
This boat was not an Albin Vega but was instead a 30ft. aluminum
schooner. I had some crew on board and One of them thinking the bilge
was a empty turned the pump off. He didn't tell me so I didn't know
that it was off. I Running with the wind cut across a known sand bar
and the waves were big and the tide had been driven out by a North west
wind. We bumped bottom hard. After a bit water started coming in the
cockpit scuppers. I lifted the hatch in the cockpit and found the
engine deep in water. Thinking the pump was running I remember thinking
we must have busted a weld seam and the water was comming in fast than
the pump could take it out. In reality water was siphoning in through
the pump. We sailed hard for Newpoint light on the lower bay and shallow
water. The coast guard would be 1/2 hour to an hour. A fifty food
Hatteras motor cruser answered our call and he was nearby. He headed for
us. He drew five feet and our centerboard schooner was already in 4ft of
water. It was still a long way to shore. I turned and headed back out to
10ft water depth just past a sharp drop off. I anchored! It was
snowing hard so we rang the bell and signaled with a horn ever 2
minutes. The power boat passed us by. I guess a our signals were muffled
by the snow. When they got downwind of us they turned and headed for us.
The wind had carried our signals. They took us all off and we headed
for a marina and made some calls to a salvage company on Gwen's Island
about 25 miles north.
WE drove there and got on the tug with the salvage crew. We ran
down the bay using their Loran and radar to find the aluminum mast
sticking out of the water. It was midnight and snowing a blizzard. One
of the guys put on scuba and attached a line to the boat. We pulled her
around behind a point of land near the light house. It was a tortuous
trip my boat made as she would rise up out of the water like a whale and
then dive down and hit the bottom then rise again. The tug was shallow
draft made to rescue boats off the outter islands along the coast and
work in the Bahamas. We set in about 5 ft of water pumping my boat out.
The tug had burnt up an engine. A marina hauled her and I pulled the
engine and got it cleaned up. there was a few hundred pounds of wet sand
in side her and we had lost a wooden skylight. Other than that every
thing was oK. A few weeks of scrubbing and cleaning and I had my boat
back. So always, always, always, have a syphen break on head and
bilge pump or anything else that can syphen water back int the boat. And
don't take anything for granted.
A good sailing friend of mine said Doug, always remember sinkings
,plane crashes and most other disaster kinds of things are almost always
a comedy of errors. In your case no syphon break, bumped bottom, bilge
pump turned off when it was supposed to be on, the jugmental error of
sailing in a storm, and to many people on board with the boat riding low
in the water. A total lack of good judgement and a comady of errors.
His reprimand stung but he was so right. My only defense and feeble at
that was I was up most of the night before so was tired. You can't sink
a boat every time you get tire though. Doug

pjacobs55 · Sep 21, 2011

Wow ... Douglas, having your boat sink ... what a story! It's good to shake up us complacent folks once in a while so we do things right!
Thanks for sharing.
Peter
#1331 'Sin Tacha'

pjacobs55 · Sep 21, 2011

I have an electric pump in the bilge, always on, that drains into the cockpit right below the instruments, right onto your feet. It's a great wake up call if there's a problem ;-)

My main pump, a Whale Gusher, is in the stock position, on the cockpit floor on the port side of the rudder shaft. It used to drain into a "T" in the port cockpit drain hose, but I since gave it it's own thru hull in the transom.

It's interesting to note my Albin Ballad also has (had) the manual bilge pump connected to a "T" in the cockpit drain. I wonder if this was S.O.P. at Albin Marin?

Peter
#1331 'Sin Tacha'
www.sintacha.com

vegatern · Sep 21, 2011

Doug, You woke me up with that. Replacing my hoses is on my list but it just got moved up some, and I like the thought of draining the maintenance pump into the cockpit. good idea.
Craig Tern 1519