Draining anchor lockers?

From another thread, this got me thinking...

cardude01 said:

Yeah. For some reason it didn't click while I was squirting water into the chain locker that the water would drain right into to bilge, but after actually thinking about it that's the only place for the water to go. When I lifted the hatch to check the bilge when leaving the boat it was full of grimy water from the chain locker. SMH.

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This seems very odd to me. How many others have vessels where the anchor locker drains into the bilge instead of over the side?

Over the side sounds nice till the chain ages and rust streaks down the hull.

FF said:

Over the side sounds nice till the chain ages and rust streaks down the hull.

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I would prefer rust streaks compared to dumping rusty water in the bilge. Also, that means the chain locker isn't a crash bulkhead, if it drains into the bilge.

I have seen some boats with chain locker drains that actually pick up sea water spray up the drains when motoring through high waves.

If you have chain locker drains, are they clear?

My chain locker drains externally. That's the way I like it.


My preference is to keep the water outside of the boat

We connected the drain of our chain locker to a fwd grey water tank - worked nicely, and kept bilges dry.

On my Hatteras, it drained to the bilge via limber holes through the lower bulkhead. The hopefully watertight "crash" bulkhead was aft of the forward bilge compartment. If your boat has an interior vertical hatch to the locker, that partition isn't a crash bulkhead anyway. Besides, there just wasn't much water involved to begin with.

Mine drains via a hose to the fwd (Rule) shower drain sump pump then overboard.

dhays said:

..How many others have vessels where the anchor locker drains into the bilge instead of over the side?

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Ours drains into the forward bilge.

Steve said:

Mine drains via a hose to the fwd (Rule) shower drain sump pump then overboard.

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Same with ours.

We store our anchor rode between this bulkhead and the anchor locker . We can wash it off in this area and hand store it in anchor locker after dry or just leave it out . Most of the time it's stored out of the locker. If we are really cleaning up the boat and making it look all spiffy we put it away in the locker .

Overboard for me. It gets a little streak down the bow, but a quick polish every few months gets rid of that. A lot easier than dealing with the water. I don't have inside access to the chain locker, so its 100% watertight.

Our Defever 49 locker drains to the bilge, so I always wash off the mud prior to the chain coming over the roller. That way there is a minimal amount of debris entering the boat. If I don't plan to use the boat for several weeks, I'll drop all the chain to the bottom, clean out the locker from the inside and then rinse the chain in fresh water (plenty of that in Juneau) on the way back up. Same thing at the end of the season.

Mine is valved just external to the bulkhead then into a fwd. grey water tank.

Well, I have to go with both. Our chain lockers have drains overboard but there is also a limber hole from each into the fwd crash bulkhead.

Our rope locker drains overboard.


-Chris

Mine drains into the bilge. I'm redoing my locker but will keep the drain into the bilge.

AusCan said:

................. I don't have inside access to the chain locker, so its 100% watertight.

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What do you do if there's a tangle inside the locker?

Ours drains directly overboard.
It is important to clean the gear on retrieval.
My previous boat had no washdown when we got it. Heavy 1" high rubber diamond mat, laid at the bottom of the anchor locker was hidden under 3" of mud, got in there with the water blaster (you can stand in the wide deep anchor locker of a Masters34/Aquarious35), mud cleared and drained.

WesK said:

My chain locker drains externally. That's the way I like it.


My preference is to keep the water outside of the boat

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Me too.

My anchor locker drains overboard. It's also protected from seawater intrusion. Seems to work well.

Cleaning the anchor locker/bilge

No matter how hard I try to keep mud, seaweed etc out of the anchor locker there is always some that gets by me. My locker drains to the bilge which translates into all that "undesirable stuff" distributing itself (I presume) between the locker and the bilge. Have yet to do it, but i believe if I introduce a hose into the locker it should wash all the debris into the bilge. Is this commonly done? Are there any tricks? Detergent or ? Added in? Thanks in advance for your responses.

Rope brings in far less debris than even scrubbed chain.

petdoc4u said:

No matter how hard I try to keep mud, seaweed etc out of the anchor locker there is always some that gets by me. My locker drains to the bilge which translates into all that "undesirable stuff" distributing itself (I presume) between the locker and the bilge. Have yet to do it, but i believe if I introduce a hose into the locker it should wash all the debris into the bilge. Is this commonly done? Are there any tricks? Detergent or ? Added in? Thanks in advance for your responses.

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We have chain wash downs built into the underside of the bow pulpit that hose the chain as it comes up.

locker drains

I converted my split rope locker into one chain locker. It had no drains originally. Now it drains through a 1 1/4" hose to a properly installed seacock about 10" above the waterline. The bottom of the locker is about 4' above the waterline so the seacock will be closed if it gets rough enough. The chain locker is glassed watertight so the seacock can be closed and the chain locker can be filled with fresh water and then drained for the occasional chain and locker rinse at the dock. I'll let you know how it works out after spring launch. By the way, draining a chain locker into the bilge strikes me as stinky as having showers do the same. Yuck.

Ours drains to a fwd sump pump that is then sent overboard along with condensation from fwd AC units.

I'm all for overboard. See no advantage of inviting water/humidity into a boat.