Pumping your bilge

[ODO Editorial]

How do you keep your bilge dry (more or less) and your boat floating? In your opinion, was your boat properly equipped with pumps when new? Or have you added or changed out bilge pumps over the years?Pump out your opinions here, then vote in this week's Quick Quiz atthe bottom of the home page.

 

[Tom Ehmke]

Reply to Pumping Your Bilge

When I bought our boat in 1995 the bilge pump on board was a Rule 800gph model with no automatic switch. The previous owner must have assumed that the boat wouldn't dare leak or (Heavens!!) sink if he weren't there to turn on the manual switch. The first year I installed a Rule-A-Matic float switch. I never really knew whether the switch was working properly because there was never enough water in the bilge to turn it on... until last Summer when my anchor broke loose in a severe thunderstorm and put me aground on the north end of Kelley's Island in western Lake Erie. Tow Boat U.S. got me out of the jam, but the keel got jiggled enough to break the keel to hull joint and we began to take on water almost as soon as the boat got her legs. That's when I discovered that the float switch wasn't floating. It had filled with water and wouldn't activate the bilge pump. We decided to take a slip on Kelley's for the night and sail back to the mainland next morning. So... every half hour throughout the night and into the next morning I got up from my comfortable berth to turn on the manual bilge switch. After the keel to hull joint was repaired, and before I launched for the rest of the season, I installed a Bilge Buddy pump switch and I routinely test it with a bucket of lake water. It seems to be a simple switch with no floats or moving parts and distinguishes between oil and water in the bilge. Ya know, it's scary at times to think of all that COULD go wrong when you're out there alone. A person could get old worrying...but, hell we get old anyway.

 

[Justin - O'day Owner's Web]

Bilge Stuff

My daysailer has no bilge - the bottom of the boat is kept dry with a vacuum bailer.When I bought my Catalina, it had the standard manual bilge pump and a dysfunctional Rule 500 in the bilge. I removed the Rule and replaced it with a sampling type Rule 1100. For those who are unfamiliar, there is no mechanical switch in a sampling pump. Instead, every so often (varries between 2 and 10 minutes between models) the pump comes on for less than a second and checks for the presence of water. If it detects water, it stays on and pumps the bilge dry. I like this type because it has no moving parts in the pump to fail. Total draw if no water is detected is less than an amp hour a week.The only thing the pump has had to deal with is fresh water. It took me forever to figure out where it was coming from but the vent on my fresh water tank leaks when the boat rocks in big seas.Justin - O'day Owner's Web