Well here is a trap for young players. And not so young as in my case.
I was greeted with the
bilge full of
water on Thursday. Not just a little, but ruffly 6 tones of it. That took some pumping. Oh won't go into the entire story, but the causes are of the most importance here I think.
Fault No.1 was the failure of a siphon break to
work. I thought at first this may have been a manufacturing fault. It was made by a reputable
engineer so I thought(me). I wanted all very high quality
parts as I didn't really trust the way the shop bougt ones worked. To cut the story short, it wasn't the siphon break itself (so my reputation is still intacked)but the fact that the siphon break was not high enough above the waterline. This was the fault of the installer (me) not confirming where the waterline actually was down in the
engine room. I assumed, and we all not that Assumption is the Mother of all stuff ups. There is a line paitned around the
engine room and is well above the engine. I assumed this demoted the waterline. Well it truns out the waterline is much higer still. So thinking my siphon break was well and truely high enough, it turns out it was not, so not enough vacum was created to cuase the air to be sucked in and break the siphon. The result is my 2000ltr
holding tank filling to the brim again. This in itself shouldn't be a problem, just an inconveniance. Except as many of you know, I have had many issues with
leaks from this tank. Well guess what, I found another one. So the
bilge compartment started filling with
water. I have five compartments, each with a
bilge pump and float switch and high water
alarm switch. Well for some reason this
pump did not activate. So that bilge filled to the top. I arrived at the
boat to find the water just about to start trickling over the top and into the next compartment. At least the pumps would have worked in that one,(I hope). But that meant I had another 4 tonnes at least of water in that compartment. I didn't notice when I arrived at the
boat, but on a second look, the boat was a good 5-6" lower in the water.
Anways, after pumping and
cleaning, I discovered the second fault. In this case it was the bilge float switch. This is called a "surebail". Hmmmmm. Anyway, the wires from the switch exit out the switch hinge. this means the wires need to be able to twist with the hinge as the float rises and falls. Well I had neatly cable tied all the
wiring up hadn't I. So the wires provided just enough resistance to stop the float from rising and activating the switch.
By the way, my fresh
water pump is in that compartment. It was submerged a good 8" down, so I had to buy a new
pump. I bought a new float switch and I gave in a went and bought at new siphon break and more hose to extend the height and so on. Of course, the new pump has bigger fittings, so I had to replace all the hose fittings. All in all, it was about a $400 exercise of flooding the boat. But on the bright side, it could have been worse.
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