Galley Sink Fills With Water

[Schooner Chandlery]

Originally Posted by alx

This is actually kind of terrifying for me. My 1979 J/30 does not have seacocks on any of the drains (galley sink, head sink, and anchor locker).

I re-did plumbing the in the head last year (NOT fun) and installed a seacock on top of the thru-hull for the head sink. The galley sink and anchor locker, though, remain directly connected to the sea. I've never had a problem with water overflowing into the sink in 3 years of sailing her hard on the bay, though.

It's definitely in my plans to fit proper seacocks on the other two drains, but now I'm feeling like I should definitely prioritize that effort.

When we got it, our boat still had the original cockpit drains which were lead pipes w/o seacocks at the hull. We replace them with seacocks. The other drains had all been replaced over the years. One of the scariest things we ever had happen was on a different boat we owned --a Rawson-- when sitting at anchor I decided to clean (scrub) under the sink. I started scrubbing away at the underside of the stainless steel with my little scotchbrite pad --bump, I hit the sink drain pipe and it just fell off the sink--because the plastic bit of hose barb that stuck down below the drain (cheezy thing it was) had broken at some point and the previous owner had glued it back in place with 5200 or similar goo! It fell off the bottom, I'm sitting there getting sprayed with salt water coming in from the at waterline thru-hull (at waterline meaning below waterline) looking that the hose clamp around the hose and bit of plastic barb thinking OMG what if that had fallen off while the boat was sitting at her mooring? she'd have sunk as the battery wouldn't have kept up... The previous owner of that boat was ...well..sort of always looking for the easy/cheap/shortcut.

[CarinaPDX]

Cadence- Terra Nova is right on this one. The cycling problem has to do with the hysteresis of the bilge switch (the difference in height at turn on and turn off), the area of the bilge, and the amount of water in the hose that can flow back. Moving the switch up only means more water sloshing around. As long as the amount of water that flows back out of the hose is greater than the amount required to move from "off" to "on" (hysteresis height times area) you will get cycling. So narrow bilges tend to be more of a problem than wide ones, for instance. [edit for error]

Greg

[zboss]

I found you should also put seacocks on ALL your through hulls - above the waterline or not. One of the issues that we encountered in the Bahamas during some heavier weather was that our normally "well above the waterline" chain locker drains were submerging with a lot of force causing a double clamped hose to come loose slightly and squirt a high pressure stream of water throughout the locker.

We will be putting seacocks on those.

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by CarinaPDX

Cadence- Terra Nova is right on this one. The cycling problem has to do with the hysteresis of the bilge switch (the difference in height at turn on and turn off), the area of the bilge, and the amount of water in the hose that can flow back. Moving the switch up only means more water sloshing around. As long as the amount of water that flows back out of the hose is greater than the amount required to move from "off" to "on" (hysteresis height times area) you will get cycling. So narrow bilges tend to be more of a problem than wide ones, for instance. [edit for error]

Greg

I was assuming a wineglass hull and a short discharge hose. Not a cure but it may provide enough volume between on and off of the switch to eliminate the constant gulping from a back flow of the hose. Hell, maybe I'm wrong. Your correct it wouldn't make a difference if stuck in a narrow bilge nor a flat bottomed scow for that matter.

I won't get ulcers over it.

[Saltyhog]

Originally Posted by zboss

I found you should also put seacocks on ALL your through hulls - above the waterline or not. One of the issues that we encountered in the Bahamas during some heavier weather was that our normally "well above the waterline" chain locker drains were submerging with a lot of force causing a double clamped hose to come loose slightly and squirt a high pressure stream of water throughout the locker.

We will be putting seacocks on those.

Wait! Do you mean the drains from the fore-deck locker with the teak grates? I don't think you'd want to close them except in an emergency. The locker will fill with nowhere to drain. If you mean the actual chain locker, your CR-38 must be different than ours. Our chain locker just drains down under the forward water tank and to the bilge. I want to figure out a way to have a sump with a pump for the water in the chain locker. I like to be able to spray down the inside of the chain locker and the chain with fresh water, and I'd rather not have all that water going through the boat/bilge. As to the galley sink drain, I like the idea of an inline ball valve just below the sink. It's pretty simple and not too much to deal with. I really like Kenomac's pump deal, but another pump to maintain and keep clear is adding complexity to my already too complicated life.

[zboss]

Originally Posted by Saltyhog

Wait! Do you mean the drains from the fore-deck locker with the teak grates? I don't think you'd want to close them except in an emergency. The locker will fill with nowhere to drain. If you mean the actual chain locker, your CR-38 must be different than ours. Our chain locker just drains down under the forward water tank and to the bilge. I want to figure out a way to have a sump with a pump for the water in the chain locker. I like to be able to spray down the inside of the chain locker and the chain with fresh water, and I'd rather not have all that water going through the boat/bilge. As to the galley sink drain, I like the idea of an inline ball valve just below the sink. It's pretty simple and not too much to deal with. I really like Kenomac's pump deal, but another pump to maintain and keep clear is adding complexity to my already too complicated life.

Yes, the on-deck locker and yes, during emergencies. Ours has two drains that go from the on deck locker, through two hoses and out the sides of the hull. Our internal chain locker has a weep hole that goes into the bilge.

We rarely get any water into our bilge except during heavy heavy rains.

[Schooner Chandlery]

Originally Posted by Saltyhog

Our chain locker just drains down under the forward water tank and to the bilge. I want to figure out a way to have a sump with a pump for the water in the chain locker. I like to be able to spray down the inside of the chain locker and the chain with fresh water, and I'd rather not have all that water going through the boat/bilge.

We have a pretty big chain locker that doesn't have a drain but the bottom is lower in the back than the front. We have a 3" diameter section of pvc pipe that sits veritically in the aft port corner that does 2 things for us 1--it carries a tank tender air hose that we can measure depth of water in the locker and 2--we can stick a bilge pump hose down it to either manually pump out the water (exit out the nearby porthole) or if we were in the mood, we could use a small electric diaphragm pump but see no reason to. It's pretty easy to rinse the chain and pump out the locker manually.

[model 10]

Originally Posted by zboss

Y
We rarely get any water into our bilge except during heavy heavy rains.

I think you will find that your chain locker will take on quite a bit water if you don't have a good way to seal your chain pipe under the windlass. Constant water over the bow at sea can surprise you at how often your bilge pump goes off. The best way is to disconnect the chain and plug the hole. I have a lump of kids modeling clay and stuff the hole and chain with that.

[zboss]

Originally Posted by Guy

I think you will find that your chain locker will take on quite a bit water if you don't have a good way to seal your chain pipe under the windlass. Constant water over the bow at sea can surprise you at how often your bilge pump goes off. The best way is to disconnect the chain and plug the hole. I have a lump of kids modeling clay and stuff the hole and chain with that.

I am aware and we can plug the hole if we choose.

We use one of those foam floaties with a hole in the middle sliced vertically so we can wrap it around the chain and stuff it into the hole from the bottom. Since the hole is beneath the windlass, we don't get much water in that way at all. The chain locker has a weep hole to the bilge if we get any water in.

[model 10]

Originally Posted by zboss

I Since the hole is beneath the windlass, we don't get much water in that way at all. The chain locker has a weep hole to the bilge if we get any water in.

It's good that you are prepared. You probably have a 2"hole in your deck for the chain. When that hole is under water, a weep hole full of mud will not cut it.

[zboss]

Originally Posted by Guy

It's good that you are prepared. You probably have a 2"hole in your deck for the chain. When that hole is under water, a weep hole full of mud will not cut it.

True!

We have had it under water - same trip that caused this thread to start. Technically we have a much larger hole there right now.

When we bought the boat two years ago we replaced the chain plates with new ones and removed the bobstay fitting to have it inspected and replace its backing plate with a new 1/2 stainless steel one.

In order to do that we needed to cut away a small area of fiberglass cover that formed the triangle peak bottom of the chain locker around the weep hole to get to the backing plate. This was, I thought at the time, a really bad idea... why did they build it that way? I guess that's a result of all Cabo's being semi-custom.

We never got around to patching it so its still open. Why close it off? Been toying with the idea of just cleaning up that area and maybe putting a screen over it to keep shells and whatever out of the bilge.

[DocBrauer]

Zboss in my CR38 I can get to my sink drain thru-hull in port cockpit locker fairly quickly. Since it is low in locker all the way forward I put a removable barrier just aft of it. This was made from my old binnacle that has stainless bars welded between the 2 legs. Keeps the other "stuff" aft of it.I open locker and take out 1 milk crate. I can then reach the handle of the thru-hull.