I have had a bad experience with drainage from my lazerette. I had
originally planned to us it for flammable storage, paint, O/B gas and small
propane cylinders.

The bottom of the locker was several inches above the waterline, at rest,
however the my boats stern settles several inches while under power.

Net result was a locker with several inches of water. I considered check
valves or flappers but had little confidence in them with the waterline
fluctuating with speed and sea condition, I just plugged the scupper/drain
and rely on natural locker ventilation in the event there are fumes.

The only ball check valve scuppers I have seen were custom made by a old
fellow building a Draught Naught (scaled up Tahiti Ketch)..

His design relied on the ball floating up against a seat. Since I never saw
this boat again, I can't say how well it worked.

I tried a similar method in a bilge drain, into a gray water tank, using a
ping pong ball. It was a total success since there didn't seem to be enough
buoyancy force against the valve seat.

--
My experience and opinion, FWIW

Steve
s/v Good Intentions


"Glenn Ashmore" wrote in message
news:8%N9f.30$ii.25@dukeread04...
Rutu has 3 small lockers built into he swim platform for snorkeling
equipment. It will be impossible to keep them dry so the side lockers
drain into the center one and I was planning to install a small bilge
pump. I am now thinking that a throughhull drain would be simpler and
more reliable but the drain will be only about 2" above the water line.
Any little swell at anchor will push water back up into the locker. I
have seen 1 1/2" cockpit drains with a ball float that seal when below the
water line but they are to large. Has anyone seen a similar device in the
3/4" to 1" range?

--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com

Tolmans have scuppers at the transom and the group at Yahoo for those that
build these have discussed this topic ad infiitum. Renn Tolman suggests
flexible tubes on the outside of the scupper that collapse when water tries
to flow into the scuppers from the outside, but remain open when water
inside the boat flows out through them. Ugly. We call them 'transom
condoms'. Many have tried other devices, including the flapper valves,
check valves, etcetera and nobody has found a solution that works. The
floating ball check valves quite working once they get a bit of real-life
gunk on or in them. The 'transom condoms' work reliably but look bad. Many
have given up and just put in round scuppers sized to fit available large
corks or pipe plugs (the type for leak checking pipes) from the local
hardware store or wine making shop.

I'd be very curious if those Sunfish check-ball self-bailers work or not and
I wonder what size the outflow passage is at it's smallest diameter
....anybody know? Anybody who actually owns and uses these that can report
on how well they work??

Brian



"Glenn Ashmore" wrote in message
news:8%N9f.30$ii.25@dukeread04...
Rutu has 3 small lockers built into he swim platform for snorkeling
equipment. It will be impossible to keep them dry so the side lockers
drain into the center one and I was planning to install a small bilge
pump. I am now thinking that a throughhull drain would be simpler and
more reliable but the drain will be only about 2" above the water line.
Any little swell at anchor will push water back up into the locker. I
have seen 1 1/2" cockpit drains with a ball float that seal when below the
water line but they are to large. Has anyone seen a similar device in the
3/4" to 1" range?

--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com

My experience with the "self bailing" center console fishing boats is that
no scupper or check valve arrangement works very well in the one way mode,
however they all seem to work fine in the two way mode. There the little
floating caged ping pong balls, rigid flapper with springs and various
other flappers that are installed. Most on these decks are about 6" above
the water until everybody runs to the spot in the rear of the boat where the
big fish is, then water comes in. My take on this was to go with really big
scuppers (3" dia) with Salisbury exhaust flappers and flappers work pretty
good against a strong backwash or wave action, but without some force from
the water trying to get in the boat, the water just leaks around them.At
least big ones drain fast when you go back to normal trim. So my guess would
be gentle swells would leak and bigger more forceful swells that would tend
to snap the flapper shut would wash over your hatches and unless they are
gasketed really well (perfectly) you will get more water in than out which
will keep them pretty much filled. So unless these are true waterproof
latches the 3/4" drain with or without a one way valve will get overwhelmed.
If you change to a much larger drain at least it will drain fast weather
water backflows in from the one way drain valve or past the "waterproof"
hatches. So, go with something bigger and expect some back flow. If you have
any breakable stuff in these lockers and the fill with water and the boat is
in a seaway sh-t will break. Also 3/4" size might be prone to get plugged
with the stuff that normally plugs drains on boats. The only problem I have
had with big scuppers is that once anything hits the deck it seems to
immediately go out the scupper.
So to sum up, go bigger and good luck with the one way mode, plan for two
way.

--
Ron White
Boat building web address is
www.concentric.net/~knotreel

That's true about big scuppers. We'll put the rods in the rod holders with
the terminal gear inside the boat when we want to go to a new spot, and the
terminal gear will zip right out through those scuppers when you get going.
I like big round scuppers plugged with big white wine making corks or
screw-in pipe plugs. You can leave them in and only take them out if
conditions warrant, otherwise let the bilge pump(s) take care of the more
minor stuff. If you buy the wine making corks, then get the ones with the
hold in the middle (for an airlock) so you can run an eye-bolt through it,
e.g. something to put pull-cords on so you can yank them quickly if you want
to.

That said ...note that the original poster was talking about a small chamber
behind the transom, on a swim platform I think. I was wondering if
something like what my snorkel has might work. It's got a 3/4" hole that
gets plugged by a cork thingy on one side of a piece of plastic with a
90-degree bend in it. The other arm of the 90-degree elbow is a float. It
doesn't take wave force to close it, just the most minor of immersions. I
imagine that if someone built something like this for the stern, that it
could be designed so that rising water (wave or whatever) would force the
scupper shut before it rose enough to even get the scupper wet. I've
thought about it for my boat, but it would be too big and cumbersome for a
normal self-bailing deck type of scupper. For the small swim platform
chamber, I wonder if you couldn't buy one of those snorkels like I have
(which works wonderfully by the way) and cut the tubing off so you'd have a
minimum section attached to the boat? If it were my swim platform storage
thing, I'd look into that. Note that I just looked at my snorkel and do not
see a brand name on it. I bought it at Gart's Sporting Goods in Chicago on
my way to Puerto Rico from Portland, Oregon... (had an overnighter in town)

Brian


"Ron White" wrote in message
.. .
My experience with the "self bailing" center console fishing boats is that
no scupper or check valve arrangement works very well in the one way mode,
however they all seem to work fine in the two way mode. There the little
floating caged ping pong balls, rigid flapper with springs and various
other flappers that are installed. Most on these decks are about 6" above
the water until everybody runs to the spot in the rear of the boat where
the
big fish is, then water comes in. My take on this was to go with really
big
scuppers (3" dia) with Salisbury exhaust flappers and flappers work pretty
good against a strong backwash or wave action, but without some force from
the water trying to get in the boat, the water just leaks around them.At
least big ones drain fast when you go back to normal trim. So my guess
would
be gentle swells would leak and bigger more forceful swells that would
tend
to snap the flapper shut would wash over your hatches and unless they are
gasketed really well (perfectly) you will get more water in than out which
will keep them pretty much filled. So unless these are true waterproof
latches the 3/4" drain with or without a one way valve will get
overwhelmed.
If you change to a much larger drain at least it will drain fast weather
water backflows in from the one way drain valve or past the "waterproof"
hatches. So, go with something bigger and expect some back flow. If you
have
any breakable stuff in these lockers and the fill with water and the boat
is
in a seaway sh-t will break. Also 3/4" size might be prone to get plugged
with the stuff that normally plugs drains on boats. The only problem I
have
had with big scuppers is that once anything hits the deck it seems to
immediately go out the scupper.
So to sum up, go bigger and good luck with the one way mode, plan for two
way.

--
Ron White
Boat building web address is
www.concentric.net/~knotreel