A Whale of a Fail: Emergency bilge pump

[Mr B]

Originally Posted by stnick

If you go off shore and your Emergency bilge pump fails after 20 years and you sink . You Have no case !! You know the new ones are Chinese !!
Your job to test all pumps before you go out of the slip !
Test re test and carry spares !!Its a Boat !!!!!

Thats about it,
Make sure your batterys are up high enough to stop being shorted out with incoming water as well,

Very scary watching the battery bank spitting flames and sparks as the water goes over them,
Mine originally were a foot off the bottom of the hulls, Now well above the waterline,

[hpeer]

Our batteries were down in the bilge, and not secured, when we boght the boat. I’ve moved/raised and secured them but there are still exposed buss bars. I can’t come up with any significantly better ideas. Batts are still relatively low but well above the sole.

What I did do was to completely coat the buss bar with liquid electrical tape. I know it won’t be 100% waterproof but I can hope it slows the process down. A complete redoing is in order but expensive and frankly I don’t have a good plan of execution that would really address the issues.

I do have two separate bilges with pumps in each. Neither of which was accessiable or serviceable let alone working at the time of the origional survey. Lots of money and sweat equity went into that. I also carry 1/2hp electrical sump pump as a crash pump.

Having experienced our surveyors complete disregard of pump functionality, he noted their presence, one wonders how many poor blokes buy boats and assume things are OK based on a “survey.” Yes I know it’s the skippers job to assure these things but we are all new and gulliable at some point.