Galley Sink Fills With Water

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by Panope

I did not have a sink filling problem but the glugging sounds at anchor (through hull was too close to water line) were annoying enough that I removed the through hull and welded the opening shut - permanently.

Sink now drains into this 7 gallon jug. This primitive system was born out of frustration but having used it now for a couple seasons of recreational use, I can give it a solid recommendation.

Pro's:

-No more sea-cock to break, operate or maintain. = Safe
-Reliable. Little chance of malfunction (just do not drop the jug overboard when draining).
-Sink can be used anytime on either tack.
-By counting jug dumps, one can monitor fresh water consumption (as long as salt water is not also used in same sink).
-Jug can act as a holding tank (for me, its good for a couple days) thus giving the ability to not contaminate a sensitive harbor with grey water.

Con's:

-If living aboard, daily jug draining might become tedious (then again, I find the opening and closing of barely reachable sea cocks to be tedious).
-Forgetting to drain jug is a bit messy
-Jug occupies valuable storage space.

Steve

The perfect hillbilly solution.

[El Pinguino]

I'm marginally bemused that you can get enough 'stuff' onto a boat like a Cabo Rico 38 for it to have any noticeable effect on how the sink drains in the first place....

Lets say WL length 10 metres x beam 4 metres ( sorry but I don't do 'imperial') and a coefficient of fineness of the waterplane of 0.6 then it will take 240kg to sink you 1cm....... that is 600kg/1323lbs to sink you one inch....... in FW

How much beer did you say you had loaded?

[boden36]

We had that problem at one stage so ran the sink teed into one of the cockpit drains above the water line. Would depend on the relative locations of the components.

Regards,
Richard.

[Rustic Charm]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

I'm marginally bemused that you can get enough 'stuff' onto a boat like a Cabo Rico 38 for it to have any noticeable effect on how the sink drains in the first place....

Lets say WL length 10 metres x beam 4 metres ( sorry but I don't do 'imperial') and a coefficient of fineness of the waterplane of 0.6 then it will take 240kg to sink you 1cm....... that is 600kg/1323lbs to sink you one inch....... in FW

How much beer did you say you had loaded?

So, what your telling the OP is,

He can load up on a lot more beer yet

[Schooner Chandlery]

Originally Posted by Terra Nova

You have an unsafe bilge pump installation.

We really like our galley sink drain pump w/vent setup and suggest that anyone who doesn't like getting seawater back up in their sink might like to install a similar one. Ours is electric but manual would work as well.

Terra Nova, you seem incredibly judgemental. No reason for such here. Hope you're just having an off day.

We have an installation that 99.999% of surveryors, engineers, and experienced cruisers would pronounce as a proper and safe bilge pump installation--and you haven't been given sufficient information for the grand pronouncement that it is unsafe. Perhaps my description was sufficiently incomplete that a declaration by you that I've described something that YOU find unsafe might be more appropriate and spot on to describe your own thoughts on the matter.

And, the install is safe in a wide variety of sea states that folks generally encounter when ocean sailing. We also happen to have sailed in extremely rough/heavy weather conditions more so than the average sailor and/or cruiser. And therein we find opportunities for large waves with a beam-on component to shove water into the bilge exit (um, how often do YOU think a sailor purposely sails with large beam-on waves? a bit unlikely isn't it?) and since the large beam-on waves in these situations are hitting all parts of the boat and crashing onto deck as well, there's not a sailor out there who'd really think that placing the exit higher on the side of the boat would help. No, it wouldn't have. From your other comments you seem to dislike check valves therefore what magic rabbit would you pull out of a hat to remedy the situation w/o a check valve or closing the thru-hull rendering the particular bilge pump unavailable?

We have a bilge water monitoring system that tells us inches of water in forward and aft bilge sections so we can see what it's got from 1/2" on up. Given that, we're pretty in-tune to what sea states put water in the bilge and which do not. I personally dislike check valves of any sort in this application but there is little else (besides closing the seacock) that seems appropriate to this bilge pump installation. I have considered plumbing the discharge into the cockpit but that would be difficult (too far from pump to cockpit) to achieve.

Being very safety-conscious, we do have more bilge pumps than most (including the one in question we have 4 that are always on/available, 2 large capacity electric ones in reserve (120VAC that would be used with the generator) and two large capacity manual ones at the ready.

I was hoping someone here would have a word of wisdom about check valves and bilge pumps--or have experience with another clever solution. The bronze swinging sort that works nicely in a down slope pipe seems like it might be just the thing. It's these small details of actually cruising that can be very frustrating -- the decision of follow the "rules" of ABYC which are usually well thought out or wing it with one's own solution that may NOT be so well thought out.

On the whole issue of telling people that their seacocks must be easily gotten to--I agree but even the easiest to access seacock can be almost impossible to get to and/or close in rough conditions. The larger the boat, the more likely this is to be true. So not having to get to the seacock at all is still the best solution.

Thanks to all for your comments on ABYC and check valves.
-- Brenda

[Schooner Chandlery]

Originally Posted by Panope

I did not have a sink filling problem but the glugging sounds at anchor (through hull was too close to water line) were annoying enough that I removed the through hull and welded the opening shut - permanently.

Sink now drains into this 7 gallon jug. This primitive system was born out of frustration but having used it now for a couple seasons of recreational use, I can give it a solid recommendation.

Pro's:

-No more sea-cock to break, operate or maintain. = Safe
-Reliable. Little chance of malfunction (just do not drop the jug overboard when draining).
-Sink can be used anytime on either tack.
-By counting jug dumps, one can monitor fresh water consumption (as long as salt water is not also used in same sink).
-Jug can act as a holding tank (for me, its good for a couple days) thus giving the ability to not contaminate a sensitive harbor with grey water.

Con's:

-If living aboard, daily jug draining might become tedious (then again, I find the opening and closing of barely reachable sea cocks to be tedious).
-Forgetting to drain jug is a bit messy
-Jug occupies valuable storage space.

Steve

Our sink drain is a "T" with cap on it so it normally goes off to the pump-vented-loop drain but we CAN simply take the cap off (it's a T with a an elbow pointing down, actually...) and let it drain into a 5 gallon bucket. We've only used the bucket when changing out the pump, but it's our backup.

[Terra Nova]

Originally Posted by Schooner Chandlery

...Terra Nova, you seem incredibly judgemental...

And you seem incredibly cavalier regarding a bilge pump system that allows water to enter your boat. The installation is unsafe.

[zboss]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

I'm marginally bemused that you can get enough 'stuff' onto a boat like a Cabo Rico 38 for it to have any noticeable effect on how the sink drains in the first place....

Lets say WL length 10 metres x beam 4 metres ( sorry but I don't do 'imperial') and a coefficient of fineness of the waterplane of 0.6 then it will take 240kg to sink you 1cm....... that is 600kg/1323lbs to sink you one inch....... in FW

How much beer did you say you had loaded?

No frickin' kidding! This is why I am in such shock at the issue!

This is what this shake-down cruise was for... to learn this stuff and get an opportunity to fix it.

We were carrying a lot of stuff that we did not need to be carrying... lots of extra parts left over from other projects, too much extra oil, too many ropes and lines, extra bimini parts, generator, grill, fuel, the dinghy motor, a very heavy wind genny pole, davits, scuba equipment, solar panels, etc... etc... just too much stuff in general. Plus we kept the dinghy on the davits, which we don't normally do on a passage but decided that since we did not have a life raft, we would use the dinghy as our liferaft. Figuring the dinghy wasn't much good deflated on the foredeck, we would leave it in the davits.

So, we are going on a diet.

1) The first thing we are going to do is remove everything from the boat that is not bolted down.

2) Then we are going to look for ways to lighten our load of stuff that is bolted down.

3) Then, be very careful about what we load back on the boat.

[Matt Johnson]

Originally Posted by Schooner Chandlery

Terra Nova, you seem incredibly judgemental. No reason for such here. Hope you're just having an off day.

Nope...always that way

[El Pinguino]

I operate a manifestly unsafe ship in as much as when at sea I leave galley sink, engine , and after head seacocks open all the time. The frd head seacocks however remain closed at sea... and most of the time in port as well.

All seacocks are readily accessible at all times. The galley one via the 'under sink' locker which contains no stores at any time.

I have never had an issue with upflooding into the galley sink.

Just another el crappo production boat I guess.

[Rustic Charm]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

I operate a manifestly unsafe ship in as much as when at sea I leave galley sink, engine , and after head seacocks open all the time. The frd head seacocks however remain closed at sea... and most of the time in port as well.

All seacocks are readily accessible at all times. The galley one via the 'under sink' locker which contains no stores at any time.

I have never had an issue with upflooding into the galley sink.

Just another el crappo production boat I guess.

Perhaps I missed it, but no one suggested it was 'unsafe' to operate any vessel with seacocks open? OPEN is the normal position to be in when underway I would have thought. Otherwise, what's the point of even having seacocks?

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by Rustic Charm

Perhaps I missed it, but no one suggested it was 'unsafe' to operate any vessel with seacocks open? OPEN is the normal position to be in when underway I would have thought. Otherwise, what's the point of even having seacocks?

I've counted three posts.........

[Rustic Charm]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

I've counted three posts.........

Which one's please, because I can't see ANY that have even alluded to that.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by Rustic Charm

Which one's please, because I can't see ANY that have even alluded to that.

2,4,21,40,50..... maybe its just my interpretation..... still running a caffeine deficit here......

[Rustic Charm]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

2,4,21,40,50..... maybe its just my interpretation..... still running a caffeine deficit here......

Have some coffee

Of those only post 40 could be taken to understand that they should be closed on passage, though, I'm not sure even he meant it that literally.

The other posters were referring to the galley sink problem of noise and water spraying over things from the galley sink. That's the context.