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Old 08-11-2021, 08:20   #46
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Re: 50+gallons of water pouring into boat..are we going to sink?

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Originally Posted by sailingabe41ds View Post
This weekend halfway between Ventura and Santa Cruz Island (So Cal) high capacity bilge alarm the I installed (Rule 3600) goes off and to my surprise water inches deep under the cabin sole. It is a horrifying thing to see which I hope nobody ever has to experience.
First, I tasted it....fresh not salty...stress dropped 1000%. Shut off all the water tanks to the pressure pump. I noticed, but ignored, when I first went in that the light to the pressure pump was on...but all the faucets were off. I also noticed that over 50gals (I have a water meter coming out of both aft/forward water tanks) had been consumed.
Took me over an hour to clear the rest of water as the filter from useless little bilge pump from Jeanneau kept getting clogged with debris and the manual bilge pump did not pump.
When I turned the water pump back on I heard gushing water behind the cabinet in the forward head. It turned out that the one way valve the I installed between a T at the faucet and the head before the solenoid valve had split in half allowing the water to run free...all 50 gallons.
What I learned...
1. Taste the water
2. If you are going to put a one way valve to protect your water supply, put it after not before the solenoid valve.
3. Pay attention to everything else to isolate the problem...seeing that the meter displaced 50 gallons used and that the pressured water pump was on tells me the problem was after the pump and not a ruptured water tank on a line leading to the pump from the tank.
4. Install a good high capacity bilge pump....the little pump is USELESS.
5. Do not assume that your manual pump works. My boat is only 6 years old ...you assume the manual pump works. I never tested it when I bought the boat.
6. Stay calm and pray or you may be prey to a water critter.

I will say it again....looking at water under the cabin sole and seeing it flooding in the middle of water is a terrifying thing to see.

Abe
Quite a shocking experience for sailingabe41ds to see his vessel flooding. He has some good advice from his mishap.


I would be very cautious about tasting water. Just a dab on the finger applied to the tongue, and a glass of water to immediately rinse the mouth. Positioning the check valve after the solenoid is a good precaution. I would also have a quarter turn ball valve before the solenoid as a manual back up.


As a marine engineer aboard commercial vessels, regular checks of all critical equipment has been a huge part of my job. In any water system, pipe work, valves, pumps, etc. must be checked on a schedule to meet class society rules. For a private vessel, there may not be such requirements, but each vessel owner or skipper ought to ensure that such checks are done. It should not be hard to make up a paper or simple computer based checks schedule.


Yup, a high capacity bilge pump can be well worth the investment. How it should be powered is a critical decision. The DC supply of batteries and engine alternator can fail. An auxiliary generator can fail. If you have room, a portable small engine driven pump can be a good back up. But storage of gasoline can be a problem. A portable diesel pump is both expensive and heavy. And hoses need storage space too. A good manual pump ought to be aboard as a back up. All this gear of course could end up as useless if not checked regularly and maintained. Check everything on a reasonable and regular schedule !
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Old 08-11-2021, 09:30   #47
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Re: 50+gallons of water pouring into boat..are we going to sink?

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Personally I don’t want anything turning off my automatic bilge pump but me

I was talking about my Fresh Water pump.
If it ran more than 30 seconds, it shut off and set an alarm.
Resetting the fresh water pump breaker reset the system.
It was also a "hint" to you know who" taking too long a shower.
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Old 08-11-2021, 11:25   #48
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Re: 50+gallons of water pouring into boat..are we going to sink?

Like someone else said we always turned off the fresh water pump. It became a habit
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Old 08-11-2021, 12:02   #49
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Re: 50+gallons of water pouring into boat..are we going to sink?

I had water coming over the floor boards. Taste the liquid, was number one on the list--> ah fresh water.

The pump had a blown outlet hose and could not stop until it was up to pressure, so it emptied both water tanks
If this happens on long passage, the water loss could become a major.

So, I installed a lower pressure pump and electronic timer.

I set the timer with reset switch so that it shuts down the pump after 2 minutes.
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Old 08-11-2021, 12:39   #50
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Re: 50+gallons of water pouring into boat..are we going to sink?

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Originally Posted by Cpt Mark View Post
Came home one night and stepped down into the forward area of my boat. Splash. Wer'e talking water 3 inches deep. Crap. It's midnight and I'm looking up to find the new leak in my boat. It was a leaky teaky. After a minute I realized wait, it hasn't rained in days. Uh oh, that means it's coming from below. Back into the main cabin to lift the floor borad up to see the bilge. Yep. It's full and the water is almost to the engine. Not good. Worse was my bilge was 7 ' feet.There's a lot of water down there.

Pump the water out, all's good. Except it came back slowly. Pump it out again. Can't find the source. Some times I'd pump the water out and it came back so fast I could watch it, other times might take a day.

Somebody called the coast guard because they say an oil sheen coming from my boat. Coasties broke into my boat and shut off the bilge pumps. Called me at work. I ripped into them telling them the boat has been taking on water and is now in danger of sinking which will be worse, a lot worse. Nope. They didn't care.

10 days of this, not sleeping and constantly worried it was 4 am or so. I picked up a book my sister had given me for Christmas. Something like emergencies at sea. Small book. Opened it and started reading and watching the bilge. "If you have water rising in the bilge and can't locate the source of it, shut off the manual bilge pumps because they are back siphoning". Ok, I'll try that. Slept like a baby and she never took on water again.
Don't you have an anti-syphon loop in your bilge pump hoses? I do....
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Old 08-11-2021, 13:20   #51
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Re: 50+gallons of water pouring into boat..are we going to sink?

Doesn't your bilge pump discharge side valve have a screw down nonreturn valve ? If not, you need to fit one. If so, it needs overhaul or replacement.



Water getting up to the engine shows that any bilge pump that relies on the main engine as the prime mover, whether mechanically driven by the engine, or driven electrically by the alternator is of limited value. A good hand pump is a definite need. A portable engine pump would be good, but as I'd said in an earlier post this can be a storage issue for the pump itself, hoses, and gasoline. Diesel powered pumps are both heavy and expensive.
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Old 08-11-2021, 13:43   #52
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Re: 50+gallons of water pouring into boat..are we going to sink?

I've had several instances of "100's of gallons of water, both salt and fresh" inside the boat....often times these occurrences happened at night or while I was sleeping.

I'm going to give y'all a tip of a lifetime !!

I installed an alarm into the bilge pump circuitry, together with a switch, so it can be turned off. The alarm is activated by the float switch. This alarm gives off a piercing wail that will wake the dead. You can hear it from quite a distance.

I WANT TO KNOW when the bilge pump goes off, and I want to know right away, so as to address the cause as soon as practically possible.

You can find a variety of 12v alarms online at many places and installation is a snap.

Do yourself a huge favor and install one, and you'll never be caught with your pants down again.
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Old 08-11-2021, 14:02   #53
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Re: 50+gallons of water pouring into boat..are we going to sink?

It sounds like a lot of nonsense. 50 gallons of fresh water from a tank. I guess the CG should be called for an airlift. A bilge pump should have pumped it overboard before it ever being over the cabin sole. JMHO
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Old 08-11-2021, 14:23   #54
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Re: 50+gallons of water pouring into boat..are we going to sink?

Just a thought regarding bilge pumps.

We have a high volume mobile electric bilge pump complementing the smaller fixed system.

Why this you may ask?

The pump is coiled with cable and hose coiled and stored, ready to deploy, on our bridgedeck.
We only need to drop it in the hull with water ingress and plug it with a very short cable into the 840Ah battery.

Advantages:
*Easy to test & inspect, because accessible
*Unlikely to be clogged before deployment
*If clogged, pull it out of the water, clean and redeploy
*The pump can be tossed also overboard to act as fire pump aiming the hose inboard
*Can be used for deck washing too
*Relative cheap setup
*No float switches which can fail
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Old 08-11-2021, 14:41   #55
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Re: 50+gallons of water pouring into boat..are we going to sink?

A good bilge alarm float switch arrangement will have a means of avoiding false alarms. A bit of residual bilge water can slop around and set off a simple system with only a float switch and horn. An adjustable time delay unit in the circuit will avoid needless alarms. Commercial ships that I've sailed aboard have a 30 second delay if I remember correctly, otherwise rough seas would constantly trip the alarm as residual bilge water trips it. An adjustable timer can be set to whatever delay you want. The float switch amp rating must be enough for the pump. A ready to use off the shelf timer will have a built in a relay rated to handle the electrical load of the pump and horn. A simple timer will lack the relay, and by itself will not handle the load. This would require adding a relay that is rated for the pump and horn. Separate switches and circuits for alarm horn and pump would be better than one circuit to operate both. In addition to water, a well fitted alarm system can also warn of coolant and fuel leaks that can run into the bilge.


Good wiring practice is essential for rugged water proof connections. I have seen even aboard commercial vessels awful wiring. Twisted and taped splices are bound to fail. Water tight junction boxes with good quality packing glands are a must for high voltage (120 or 220 volts). If carefully done, well soldered or well crimped wire splices in low voltage systems (12 & 24 volt) might be ok. But they must be covered with "double wall" heat shrinkable tubing (the stuff with a layer of hot melt glue on the inner wall). If done correctly, this stuff seals out water. For 120 or 220 volt circuits, I would only make terminations with proper junction boxes.


Of course bilge alarm and pumping systems require periodic inspection and testing. The suction pipe should have a strainer that needs to be checked for debris. The pump pipe work should be fitted with piping and valves for testing without pumping bilge water overboard. Dry running a pump briefly only tells that it turns, but does not tell that it pumps.
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Old 08-11-2021, 15:02   #56
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Re: 50+gallons of water pouring into boat..are we going to sink?

You have my sympathy ...... you're going down.

I hope have an ELT and called the coast guard.

Goodluck and godspeed!

Cheers!
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Old 08-11-2021, 15:43   #57
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Re: 50+gallons of water pouring into boat..are we going to sink?

I'm one of those sailors that view a dry bilge as a happy bilge....I don't want to see any water in there for any reason.

At sea, I regularly take a peek in the bilge and under the floorboards for my own peace of mind...I use this term "bilge" loosely....Beneteau's have a flat underwater body....the "bilge" is a shoebox size indentation in the keel. When heeled over, water inside the boat will simply run to the low side of the hull. The floorboards are a mere 9" or so above the bottom of the hull...

That little indentation has no room for a float switch, so I've had to come up with some innovative ways to let me know if I have a problem.

The alarm helps to let me know I have a problem down there.

It's something I've learned to live with.
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Old 08-11-2021, 17:52   #58
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Re: 50+gallons of water pouring into boat..are we going to sink?

Yesterday I inspected the things that went wrong. I took apart the manual emergency bilge pump..all vaulves and diaphragm look good. I could blow air out the exit hose but notice I could not on the intake hose. Went to the bilge and the tip of the hose has a bronze heavy one way vaulve...the round bronze stop vaulve was frozen inf tge closed position. Tore that puppy out...no more internal vaulve mechanism....problem solved.
The smaller pump that sits high and away from the bilge works fine. I noticed a small hose leak where the hose meets the filter. Got a bigger filter and cutt the end of the bad hose.
All could have been prevented with regular checks.
My bad...abe
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Old 09-11-2021, 07:41   #59
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Re: 50+gallons of water pouring into boat..are we going to sink?

that's the problem with a bilge....

it's " down there" and doesn't get much attention until the doodoo hits the fan...

it's a reasonable bet that a lot of sailors don't check their bilge pumps, hoses, connections, etc, until water comes over the floorboard..

besides checking the pumps, probably also a good idea to give all the thru' hull valves, hoses and clamps a looksee...
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Old 09-11-2021, 20:00   #60
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Re: 50+gallons of water pouring into boat..are we going to sink?

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Originally Posted by geoff3nebel View Post
If you close the cooling water">engine cooling water seacock and unclip the hose, you can use that, with the engine running of course, as an auxiliary pump
A two-way valve on the inlet to the strainer would be an enhancement to that.
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