"Ree-Yees" wrote in message news:2bWmc.4344


What do you guys recomend? Should I plug that pipe or should I sea up the
hole with something better than a board?


No, do NOT block that tube!

Boats leak, it's part of the definition of a boat. Regardless of where the
water enters the boat it needs to find its way out. This usually means that
the water has to flow to the compartment where the bilge pump is.

If your leak (assuming it is only one) is in the back portion of the boat
then plugging that tube would prevent the water from going forward. This
might help isolate where the leak is and could be a good diagnostic
approach, but leaving the tube plugged will eventually result in the entire
front cuddy area filling with water until it was high enough to spill over
the step into the back. If you don't have a leak up there now, you
eventually will get one.

That little well underneath the board looks like a standard design to me.
It was nice of them to give you easy access to that spot, in case you need
to clean out that tube. In fact, maybe that's the problem, clean that tube
out!

One thing that surprises me is how shallow your bilge space is. Any boat
that I have ever owned or operated has leaked, at least a small amount. The
bilge pump will never get all the water out, so there will always be some
that splashes around in the bottom.

While underway, the bow comes up and the low spot in the boat is typically
in the very back. It is a good idea to have a bilge pump located here so
that it can remove the maximum amount of water while underway.

When you are at rest, the bow will be lower and the low spot may be in a
different location. It is possible that the low spot is far enough forward
that water can accumulate and cause the bow to start sinking before the
water level ever reaches the transom bilge pump. For this reason you should
have a second bilge pump in the "at rest" low spot.

Ideally, you would eliminate the leak and not have a problem.
Unfortunately, we don't live in an ideal world so you had best be able to
deal with a small leak. If the problem is that the small amount of water
that the bilge pumps can't get is enough to spill over into the cabin sole
then you have three choices:

1) get better bilge pumps.
2) redistribute weight so that the stern is a bit lower than the cabin at
rest.
3) raise the cabin sole to provide more bilge space.

Option three might be easier than you think. You can buy these rubber tiles
called "dri deck" that are about 1/2 inch thick and are constructed so that
water can flow through and under them. You just buy a bunch of these and
then trim them to fit the entire cabin floor, then put your carpet over the
tiles. This will give you another 1/2 inch of bilge space, plus the carpet
will dry a lot faster if it does get wet.

Rod McInnis

So I have found out that the tube coming out in the cuddy cabin is for
draining out water in the cabin that could accrue from rain, wet towels,
people, etc. The bilge pump will suck on this tube to suck the water out
when I turn it on.

What is happening is, when enough water is below the engine and I havn't
been running the bilge pump, if I slow down super fast to make the nose of
the boat go way down, some of that water will make its way up the tube and
come out into the cuddy cabins floor.

If I run the bilge pump for a few seconds before doing the slow down no
water will come out into the cuddy area.

If I run the bilge pump when the water does come out into the cuddy area it
sucks it right out.

So if I ran my bilge pump all the time I would never see this water, but
sometimes there would be no water for the bilge pump to suck out and it
would be running dry. Will this hurt the pump?

I have a plug for the cuddy pipe that I could plug it with and take it out
if rain got in there but I havn't tested it out yet.

--C

So if I ran my bilge pump all the time I would never see this water, but
sometimes there would be no water for the bilge pump to suck out and it
would be running dry. Will this hurt the pump?


Yes.

You need an automatic switch for that bilge pump to turn it on and shut it off
depending on the water level.

Float switches can be a pain in the butt, and usually don't last very long.

I think my next pump switch willl be a:

www.waterwitchinc.com

Also Sprach Gould 0738 :

You need an automatic switch for that bilge pump to turn it on and shut it off
depending on the water level.

Float switches can be a pain in the butt, and usually don't last very long.

I think my next pump switch willl be a:

www.waterwitchinc.com

I had a water witch, the orange model 257 shown on the website. It
sucked. It would turn on just fine, but quite often would not turn
off. If I cleaned it well with windex, it would work for a few weeks,
then start sticking on again. I got sick of climbing in the bilge to
polish a switch, so i went back to a Rule Super Switch with the Super
Switch Guard, it's been running fine for 3 years now. Only maintainence
has been checking under the guard for stray bits of fishing line once a
year. My pop has a Rule fully automatic pump, it starts every 15 minutes
or so, and if it detects load on the pump, it runs until the water is gone
and the load goes away. Has been pretty reliable for 5 years or so, but
kind of annoying to hear the pump spin up every 15 minutes.

Dan


--
I am not part of the problem. I am a Republican.

-- Dan Quayle

On Tue, 18 May 2004 08:43:17 -0500, "Ree-Yees"
wrote:

So I have found out that the tube coming out in the cuddy cabin is for
draining out water in the cabin that could accrue from rain, wet towels,
people, etc.

My boat has a similar device, sans the pump. It relies on gravity to
drain the cabin sole.

The bilge pump will suck on this tube to suck the water out
when I turn it on.

What is happening is, when enough water is below the engine and I havn't
been running the bilge pump, if I slow down super fast to make the nose of
the boat go way down, some of that water will make its way up the tube and
come out into the cuddy cabins floor.

Yup. That nasty thing called inertia.


If I run the bilge pump for a few seconds before doing the slow down no
water will come out into the cuddy area.

If I run the bilge pump when the water does come out into the cuddy area it
sucks it right out.

So if I ran my bilge pump all the time I would never see this water, but
sometimes there would be no water for the bilge pump to suck out and it
would be running dry. Will this hurt the pump?

Running a pump dry will hurt it eventually.


I have a plug for the cuddy pipe that I could plug it with and take it out
if rain got in there but I havn't tested it out yet.

That is your best bet. The drain in my boat has a threaded fitting
which the plug screws into. Since I never get water in the cabin area,
I never remove the plug.

Dave