Crash Pumps?

[cheoah]

The capacities for the Honda pumps are GPM, not GPH, and ~30 GPM for the little Honda sounds about right. I have a couple on the farm for watering cattle out of the river. It gets tossed around in my cattle crew's vehicle, and sits for long periods of time without draining the gas, and yet is very reliable.

The WX 10 is probably too small for your "crash pump", but the next bigger one might offer some good redundancy. I'm pretty sure it is a semi-trash pump, so won't get clogged easily. Keep the gas stored separately, as you should have time to fuel it if you are taking on water. On the other hand, if you don't have time to fuel it, ~70 GPM prolly isn't going to solve your problem.

Bottom line, I have a lot of farm experience -not marine- with Honda powered pumps large and small, and they are very reliable. The WX 10 is tiny compared to any small genset, or standard gas powered pump in a frame, but only offer about 1600 GPH.

[atoll]

having 5 watertight bulkheads,and a jabsco high volume clutched pump off the front of the main engine gives a lot of pieace of mind,the main engine will run under water with the raised air intake snorkel/air filter assembly.
also a 240 v submersible,and 24v system trough a set of bellows and valves takes of care of the different compartments

when we cracked the skeg 3 days from antigua,the aft cabin flooded under the floorboards but was easily controlled by the 24v system,and could only rise to the water line level about 3" under the cabin floor in that compartment.

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by cheoah

The capacities for the Honda pumps are GPM, not GPH, and ~30 GPM for the little Honda sounds about right. I have a couple on the farm for watering cattle out of the river. It gets tossed around in my cattle crew's vehicle, and sits for long periods of time without draining the gas, and yet is very reliable.

The WX 10 is probably too small for your "crash pump", but the next bigger one might offer some good redundancy. I'm pretty sure it is a semi-trash pump, so won't get clogged easily. Keep the gas stored separately, as you should have time to fuel it if you are taking on water. On the other hand, if you don't have time to fuel it, ~70 GPM prolly isn't going to solve your problem.

Bottom line, I have a lot of farm experience -not marine- with Honda powered pumps large and small, and they are very reliable. The WX 10 is tiny compared to any small genset, or standard gas powered pump in a frame, but only offer about 1600 GPH.

Yeah, 30 gpm is a little over a 55 gallon drum every 2 mins... that's a lot of water compared with your average bilge bump... whatever it's "rating".

[rtbates]

You've just discovered the biggest issue with ALL centrifugal pumps. Replace at least one of them with a diagram pump.

[cal40john]

Originally Posted by rtbates

You've just discovered the biggest issue with ALL centrifugal pumps. Replace at least one of them with a diagram pump.

I haven't seen a diaphragm pump rated fast enough to be any decent disaster pump.

John

[David M]

The broader term is a displacement pump, which do not need to be primed because they create a good amount of air suction at the inlet end. Diaphragm pumps are a type of displacement pump. There are other types of displacement pumps such as vane pumps.

Displacement pumps are by nature not as fast as centrifugal pumps. The impeller of a centrifugal pump must be submerged or primed in order to work.

[ranger58sb]

I only quickly skimmed the thread, so forgive if repetitive...

Groco makes a thing called a Safety Seacock, which you can use to feed you main engine(s)... but if necessary, reverse the vaqlve and your engine(s) will pull water from the bilge.

They also make a Saftey Seacock Concersion (aka flush adapter) which will essentially accomplish the same thing.

If you use these on the thru-hulls that feed main engine(s), genset, and maybe even AC, all could be dewatering simultaneoulsy... perhaps useful if sea water pickups are in different compartments.

-Chris

[Lagoon4us]

The original pumps on ships like the bounty were mounted on deck, operated by humans and used animal skins for the pump bladder, why because when the ships going down you don't want to be below so the logic is a system of tubes running from deck level to bilge into each compartment with camlock style cap/fitting and a pump that can be attached....

[Doug Brown]

Hi - I have 6 years of hands-on experience with my crash pump, which I call a fire pump.

It is a 2-cyle centrifugal pump with 1" suction/discharge fittings. It weighs about 10 pounds as it is mostly plastic. Discharge rate is about 38-gallons a minute and pressure is about 50-psi (pressure only really important for fire fighting). You can use either lay flat 1" hose, or a 3/4" garden hose with a simple adaptor.

In it's day, it has extinguished a pretty large interior fire on a 45-ft ketch, as well as dewatered 4 boats that were sinking, and refloated one sunk boat.

Two cycles make a lot of noise when running, but have the advantage that they can be operated at pretty severe angles of heel since the bearings are lubricated by the oil mixed with the gasoline. Four cycle pumps must be kept level or you will burn out the bearings from loss of oil lubrication.

I always kept my pump filled with fuel, and ran it about every 2 or 3 months to make sure it worked and for training. You have to know how to prime the pump so it can develope a suction for pulling the water into the pump. You need to flush the pump with fresh water after every use.

You need a good strainer (usually furnished when yo buy a pump). If you keep the strainer a couple of inches off the bottom of the compartment you are de-watering, you will get very little debris into the pump. Your strainer MUST have a clapper valve in it as this will allow water to stay in the suction hose and keep the prime intact if you move the hose around.

While I have only a 1" pump, you can also get them in 1-1/2" size. While the pumps are small, when you go to the 1-1/2" size your suction hose becomes quite large as will your discharge hose if you chose to get 1-1/2" fire hose.

These pumps are available on E-Bay - look under "portable water pumps".

Some pumps are still being made out of plastic, most are made out of non-marine grade aluminum. Painting the pump housing helps to prevent corrosion, but you must flush and dry the pump interior with fresh water after every use. Spraying in a lubricate helps too.

For my normal pumping needs I have a Whale Titan 1-1/2" manual bilge pump and 3 Rule 3600 12vdc bilge pumps (2 down in main bilge, 1 in the rear cockpit area.

A word of warning - NEVER use your main engines water pump as a bilge pump!!!! The pump WILL get clogged up and you will overheat/damage your main engine. I have seen it happen a number of times - MAJOR dumb idea.

Doug

[roverhi]

Most of the reports I've seen where the CG dropped pumps, the pumps didn't work for some reason. Haven't seen reports on why they failed, couldn't get them started, clogged up, too big a leak or whatever?? Any unused engine powered pump, gas or diesel is subject to the environment on a boat and likely to have problems if not regularly started and inspected. For a gas engine, all you have to do is shut off the fuel and let the engine run till it dies to protect the carb. It's the electricals I'd be concerned with and that includes the starter if it has an electric one. Same goes for diesel with bad fuel, malfunctioning starter etc. Boat engne driven pumps can pump out a prodigious amount of water but need to be permanently mounted to be readily available when needed. Of course, how many times do you read of a boat, even sail boats, being abandoned after main engine failure. The Bounty seems to be one of these.

Not trusting anything that needs fuel and/or electricity to work when you really need it, have gone with the Edson 30 manual pump kit: Manual Diaphragm Pumps
These pumps move a lot of water quickly and relatively easily. Had a down pour while I was repainting the deck Had all the hardware, hatches, deck drains etc. removed and ended up with water above the floor boards. Pulled out the handy dandy Edson and had the bilge dry in a few minutes. It's easy to pump with the long handle and should be able to pump for quite a long time without tiring you out. It would probably keep up with a busted through hull, lost shaft but would take vigorous pumping to do it. Didn't have any problems with it clogging but had a strum box on the pick up. It stores flat on the floor of a cockpit locker and takes up surprising little space. These pumps are really pricey but I was lucky to find one at a consignment store. They are/were apparently required equipment on commercial vessels so seem to come up as surplus regularly. Blue Pelican, the consignment store, had two when I bought mine.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by roverhi

....ounty seems to be one of these.

Not trusting anything that needs fuel and/or electricity to work when you really need it, have gone with the Edson 30 manual pump kit: Manual Diaphragm Pumps....

30gpm is pretty respectable. If it is just your typical Mom and Pop cruising crew, I'm not convinced you could keep up the pumping and try and deal with the cause for very long.

[Andrew Troup]

A relevant (hopefully !) and slightly edited excerpt from this post which goes on at greater length (too great, probably):

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ml#post1072331

"It seems to me axiomatic that electric pumps cannot be included in any list of disaster-dewatering assets, but engine driven pumps (given a carefully thought-through snorkel, connected also to all breathers (ON EDIT: including fuel tank breathers as well as crankcase) will run indefinitely with the engine completely submerged.

ON EDIT: The Bounty's engines presumably were unavailable for electrical reasons, unless the installation was designed or installed by landsmen. It's not credible that any other problem would afllict both engines. Surely they would have alternative fuel tanks, for instance, for emergencies...

If there is a smaller diesel, say for genset duties, this should be the one with the engine driven pump if the larger diesel cannot be started without electricity."

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I don't understand - why would a portable generator be any harder to drag out and set up than a portable gasoline pwered pump?

Advanatges of the portable generator are: 1. I keep one on board anyway; 2. It gets used for other things, so is more likely to be used and (logically) less likely to sit unused and prone to not start; and 3. The portable genset is third source of power among triple redundant power sources, rather than the sole power source for the pump.

Super answer. Seems like you're already there. Only downside is that it depends on your boat wiring. But if it works for you, go for it.

[fousley]

How about this?
Fast Flow Emergency Bilge Pump

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Ah, I'm sure my setup is not bulletproof -- nothing is bulletproof on a boat.

But in choosing multiple non-bulletproof sources of power, I think I would rather rely on the heavy-duty diesel powered unit which is used every day, rather than the light-duty gasoline powered unit which lives in the anchor locker, rusting away there in the salt water splash and forgotten until the moment when it is a matter of life and death.

The other advantage of AC power is that even the genset is not mission critical -- the inverter will run it if the main AC power system is not down.

I agree with you of course about the cascade of failures.

I do like HopCar's idea about propane power -- now a propane powered pump could live indoors somewhere, and its carb can't get gummed up -- two huge plusses compared to gasoline. But you still have the risk that you're out of propane (or butane -- I assume you would power it with cooking gas). Seems not dramatically less than the risk that your main diesel genset happens to be on the fritz the day you are holed.

Yet another variant would be to have a portable generator on board which is capable of running the electric pump as the third potential AC power source. I have a Honda EU10i which is not capable of running the big electric trash pump. Perhaps the EU20i would. Then surely this is something getting as close to bulletproof as you can have on a boat.

On many larger boats, the genset is mission-critical and so is carefully maintained and is instantly repaired if it breaks. I have been on boats where the windlass and bowthruster will not work unless the genset is running. I have had some trouble with my genset (a heavy duty, continuous-duty rated three-cylinder, low speed Kohler) but I think I could keep in in reliable condition. Some cruisers leave their gensets broken because they don't want to spend the money to fix them. And 90% of broken gensets are high-speed, light duty units anyway.

Here's a cascade of events to consider. You are entering a trcky, reef strewn entrance to a tropical island anchorage in the mid afternoon. The clouds build quickly and you get a direct lightening hit. In the confusion the helmsmen runs into a reef and holes the boat. Lots of things electrical don't work now. A manual pump or a self contained fuel pump probably still would be available. Or insurance would also work.