50+gallons of water pouring into boat..are we going to sink?

[Scorpius]

Originally Posted by geoff3nebel

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

Only if you bring salt water into the boat for engine cooling. Those of us with keel coolers (or other ways of cooling the engine coolant without salt water and a heat exchanger) have no such pump. Saves no end of grief - except in this very specific situation.

[OS2Dude]

Our 1985 Catalina 30 has the head sink drain sharing the seacock with the head input. This way, if we want to flush with fresh water we close the seacock and fill the sink. When the head flushes, it pulls from the sink and Voila! No worries about the head contaminating the fresh water supply.

[sailon46]

Sailing from St Croix to Cay West and first night out of Green Cay Marina small water under the motor of my Bene 51. Second night more 2-3 gallons per hr. Tried to hail Puerto Rico but Covid Nono it was may 2020. The water was coming in from the Volvo dripless on the shaft. Manually bailing for 11 days and sailing only made it to Cay Sal where the USCG Cutter USS Manatee showed up after calling them on the Iridium and towed us to Stock Island Robby’s boat yard and saved us and the boat. I think in this mishap that I emptied less than 100 but more than 50 Home Depot 5 gallon buckets. I am a living witness that a frightened sailor with a bucket is better than any electrical bilge pump.

[CFS Klopas]

Mine was a loose through hull fitting above the water line. After I switched to sail power, the heeling was enough to splash water through the opening. The leak temporarily stopped on its own when I doused the sails, except I hadn't tracked it down. When I hoisted again, I was on the opposite tack and didn't take more.

The safety regs for racing often require a 5 gallon bucket with a line on the handle. The line was certainly useful.

[sailingabe41ds]

First I am so glad I intalled a second bilge pump. It is unacceptable that a sailboat like this comes with one little pump that pumps out 300 gal per hour on a flat grade...
Second... angry I did not not check out the manual pump. ..another project.
Third.. I will feel better to add a second Rule 3600..just got to figure out placement and whete to drill another hole.
I sail solo some times and I do not think my petite wife would last more than 10 minutes with a manual pump or bucket.

Abe

[waterman46]

15 miles offshore was far enough to feel scared when the Cal 29 started to feel slow and sluggish and looking below we saw water over the cabin sole.
Tasted very salty so we knew we had a problem. We had been beating into steep seas for several hours on this ocean race. Lots of solid water on the foredeck. Someone got smart and noticed that the anchor rode access plate on the foredeck had been left open.
A huge sigh of relief for all on board!

[sailingabe41ds]

Originally Posted by nortonscove

Also ensure that the bilges are clean. Sinking because the pump is blocked by dirt would be hard to rectify with oneself.

My bilge is always clean but when the leak is from 15 ft away it brought with it all the crap the builders left behind. Mqy not be a bad idea to flood the subfloor with a water hose and see what other crap is in there.

abe

[Mithril Bham]

No. Fresh water leak from tanks will not cause you to sink. You aren't taking on any additional water just moving it to another place.
Not good, of course.

[sailingabe41ds]

Originally Posted by Mithril Bham

No. Fresh water leak from tanks will not cause you to sink. You aren't taking on any additional water just moving it to another place.
Not good, of course.

.....but i did not know it was fresh water at first. thank god the ice in the icebox didnt melt or it would have added a few xtra pounds of water

abe

[Mithril Bham]

Originally Posted by sailingabe41ds

.....but i did not know it was fresh water at first. thank god the ice in the icebox didnt melt or it would have added a few xtra pounds of water

abe

Not really. Same principle applies. Although a given amount of water weighs more than the same amount of ice It is not much (9% I think). The volume would increase a bit but has nothing to do with adding to the boat weight.

[AKA-None]

Originally Posted by senormechanico

That happened to us years ago, so I made a timer circuit with a relay, resistor, electrolytic capacitor and a 12 volt buzzer.

When the pump runs continuously for more than x time (depending on the resistor/capacitor selection) it shuts off the pump and causes the buzzer to alarm.


Simple fix.

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

[Bill_Giles]

You would be surprised what a good manual pump can accomplish. We took some water aboard back through the bilge pump outlet which was covered whenever we went through a wave (not my design!). This was not noticed until the water was over the floorboards. Then the pump was reluctant to work unless primed by putting a hand over the outlet. Then it worked for 10 pumps or so and then needed reprising. On investigation I found a couple of feet of rope in the pump with an end protruding at both inlet and outlet. It was mainly on the outlet side and only a knot had stopped it going all the way through. The rope had obviously allowed a reverse flow by defeating the exit non-return vale.

[Bbolino]

All useful info. Suggest a little effort be directed at finding out why the valve split and also suggest a reason.

He notes 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". The probable cause was hydraulic pressure from water expanding between the 2 valves. with the head solenoid closed a slight temperature change in the water between the 2 valves can cause hundreds of pounds of pressure.

Never install valves so that water can be isolated between them without some means for relieving thermal expansion

[ron17571]

That was an educational post. I think a good bucket is something to have onboard besides backup pumps. If you ever hit something a square piece of heavy-duty plastic would be handy. Tie lines at each corner and slip it under the boat and pull it tight like a bandaid over the hole. I read about doing this many years ago, They also recommended stuffing a rag or wad of cotton in the hole also. let's hope this is never needed by anyone reading this.

[Tdadisman]

I am happy this ended well and I learned a lot from reading the posts. I have seldom used my manual bilge pump but now I test it every so often. It seems the rubber stuff inside rots out and needs replaced. In any case to avoid such a scenario as described I have installed a flow switch at the out let of the water tanks, when the flow exceeds the flow capability of my water pump it automatically trips a solenoid valve and closes the outlet of the tank...this works great as I actually used it once when a water line under the galley came apart due to improper installation.