How to Fill a LARGE Hull Void ?

[Juniper]

Well as a way to clean the area, get a spray ball7064T1 mcmaster carr, or like. just pump in hot soapy water and pump it back out, it sprays water out in all dirctions. can also be used to clean the inside of tanks.

[bangkaboat]

If you can get a compressed air hose in, cover up the interior with some plastic & make sure you're wearing safety glasses - welding helmut would work well - & blast the crap out. add degreaser with a bit of water & repeat. Messy job, but better than having to take your boat apart. then fill it. I like the tar idea, but epoxy will be good, too. Then again, if it isn't hurting anything, you could just leave it as your own dirty little secret, only none to a few thousand friends on CF!

Mike

[s/v Jedi]

exactly how much room is there to get into this hole? If there's something like just under an inch, I would keep it as the sump and install a pump.

The photo below shows how I make pick-up pipes for the bilge. It's just a 3/4" PVC pipe that is cut at an angle. Put it into the black hole until it touches the bottom of it. Hold a 90 degree elbow next to it and mark where to cut so that the elbow is tight on the bilge. The other side of the elbow gets another piece of pipe and a fitting to thread > to 3/4" hose adapter. The hose goes to a Gulper 220.

You mount the pickup with the clamps as shown (but on the horizontal part of course). Works perfectly.



ciao!
Nick.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by Juniper

Well as a way to clean the area, get a spray ball7064T1 mcmaster carr, or like. just pump in hot soapy water and pump it back out, it sprays water out in all dirctions. can also be used to clean the inside of tanks.

Now that is a nice gadget to add to the kit. I can think of all sorts of uses for that. Thanks

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

exactly how much room is there to get into this hole? If there's something like just under an inch, I would keep it as the sump and install a pump.

The photo below shows how I make pick-up pipes for the bilge. It's just a 3/4" PVC pipe that is cut at an angle. Put it into the black hole until it touches the bottom of it. Hold a 90 degree elbow next to it and mark where to cut so that the elbow is tight on the bilge. The other side of the elbow gets another piece of pipe and a fitting to thread > to 3/4" hose adapter. The hose goes to a Gulper 220.

You mount the pickup with the clamps as shown (but on the horizontal part of course). Works perfectly.



ciao!
Nick.

I have a flexible hose in with a large, bronze strainer on the end that I can feed into the hole so can get the water out. It will work as a sump and guess I'm going to keep it that way. Just have to get used to any part that drops out of my fumble fingers when working on the engine will be gone.

When I started trying to clean out the hole I got a wet/dry shop vac and taped a 2 meter piece of garden hose to the pickup side. I was able to feed the garden hose into the pit and blindly wiggle it around and think I covered most of the area. It clogged 8-10 times in the process and I had to pull it back out to see what I had discovered. These plus what I collected out of the inside of the vac included:

- several hose clamps
- numerous screws, nuts and bolts
- a couple of small parts off the engine
- a handfull of wood scraps
- two large, greasy rags
- several nylon wire ties

This is one of my big concerns. If you ever get into a serious leak situation all this crap will plug up your bilge pumps and could help sink you. Of course the goal is to remove all this stuff and never lose anything more into the bilge that could clog your pumps but I much prefer being able to look in the bilge to see rather than trust no one dropped a rag that slipped in where I can't see it.

[boatman61]

Shoot... stopping things going down theres much easier... just put some mesh across the hole to stop anything bigger than dust going down... fill with degreaser/water once a month and pump dry... be clean sooner or latter...lol

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by bangkaboat

If you can get a compressed air hose in, cover up the interior with some plastic & make sure you're wearing safety glasses - welding helmut would work well - & blast the crap out. add degreaser with a bit of water & repeat. Messy job, but better than having to take your boat apart. then fill it. I like the tar idea, but epoxy will be good, too. Then again, if it isn't hurting anything, you could just leave it as your own dirty little secret, only none to a few thousand friends on CF!

Mike

I think for now a variation on this theme. First soak it with solution of water and oil eating bacteria followed by bilge cleaner, degreasers, etc.

Finally install bilge pump pickup hose and just leave it, but will you promise not to tell anyone.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by Pblais

One question? Might there be keel bolts at the bottom of the hole or is the keel full encapsulated. My last boat had a deep hole but there was a hatch over it and if someone held your ankles you could clean the bottom (fun job). That was a fully encapsulated keel. Concrete over lead.

Current boat the water tanks are in the middle and the forward is storage but the aft has a tiny hatch with a dark hole. The water tank has twin hatches above and it can be removed easily and hauled out of the boat. Fuel tanks too. They are under berths. I think I could get all three out in a day with some help once they were empty enough to lift. All have large inspection ports.

The sump area is a max of 1/3 of the for/aft length of the keel. In the accessible bilge I can easily see the rest of the keel and it is all fully encapsulated with a thick layer of glass covering the lead. After dark I can shine a work light down the back side of the sump and see the outline of the area through the hull from the outside (gel coat is shaved off in preparation for barrier coat) and it appears to be encapsulated like the rest of the keel.

I looked at the floors carefully last night and it does look like the section over the water tanks could be removed. Would have to move the house batteries, companionway and some wood parts that are not glued/screwed but then could drill out 10-12 plugs and unscrew that section of the sole (assuming it is not glued to the floors underneath). BUT the tank is fiberglass (though not integral to the hull, why not I don't understand) and I can see places where it is seriously glassed to the hull so would still be a messy fight to get it out.

Makes you wonder what builders are thinking when they do stuff like this.

[Johnathon123]

I was just trawling through PBO, they have an article on a product called a whale super sub, built for confined spaces. Don't know anything about them other than the "advertorial" but might be worth a look