Any interesting Sea Chest ideas?

[mvweebles]

Having a complete refit/restoration done on my 1970 Willard 36 in Mexico. Engine room real estate is tight - wondering if anyone has any cool ideas on a sea chest or intake manifold. I see Groco has an interesting manifold fitting and am considering that. Trying to reduce number of sea strainers. Might be a false errand, but thought I'd ask.

 

[O C Diver]

My boat came with 5 seacocks. In an effort to reduce the number during my refit and repower, I went with one 2" secock with strainer and external screen for all raw water needs. There is a second seacock for the holding tank overboard discharge. Heading to the boatyard in a couple of weeks and will be replacing the manifold.

I prefer one seacock for quick flooding response. The engineering however requires some serious planning. Most devices will self prime. However, some pumps such as some air conditioning pumps aren't self priming and may loose their prime from another pump running. Also, you'll want to valve devices so that they may be isolated for repair without shutting the hole system down. Also it's important to follow most manufacturers recommendations. For instance, most strainer manufacturers don't want hard plumbing hanging on the strainer housing. So, a hose going to a distribution manifold is the preferred configuration. Also make sure you have enough flow to handle all devices that could be running at the same time.

Here's a pic of my new distribution manifold being dry fitted.



Ted

 

[FF]

For many folks the effort of installing a sea chest is too high.

I have found many folks get great service with a Y style strainer installed AFTER the sea water pump.

When the sea water impeller gives up almost all the impeller pieces are in the basket in the Y strainer , no chasing or back flushing the engine or heat exchangers needed.

Doesn't help the water coming into the boats system as a sea chest would , but usually a great bit of hassle insurance.