Dock water inlet

Can someone tell me the procedure to switch a KK42 over to city water supply?


I'm assuming most of the boats came with the standard pressure regulator inlet that you screw a hose into. I see a valve in the first couple feet of the line (behind the washer/dryer), but am wondering if there are other valves/switches that need to be changed?
The PO said they never used it and were not sure how to set it up, and right now the water lines here a frozen anyway, but once it warms up it would be nice to not have to fills tanks regularly while we live at the dock.


Thanks

How about a picture? As they say “you’ve seen one Krogen, you’ve seen one Krogen “. They are all different especially after 25-30 years. On mine I just attach the hose and turn off the water pump.

meridian said:

How about a picture? As they say “you’ve seen one Krogen, you’ve seen one Krogen “. They are all different especially after 25-30 years. On mine I just attach the hose and turn off the water pump.

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I thought of that after I posted, the water system has most likely been modified: watermaker installation, waterline replacement, filter additions....mine is probably not "factory standard" either, not that there really is such a thing on Krogens. I was just being lazy and trying to avoid spending an afternoon in the engine room tracing the water lines.
Sounds like yours doesn't even have the one inlet valve I have found so far, but thanks for the response.

I’m hull 66. We do not have a shore water connection from the factory. With the size of the tanks, I prefer to keep them fresh by using them anyway. We get about 2 weeks between fills including lots of laundry.

Sealife said:

I’m hull 66. We do not have a shore water connection from the factory. With the size of the tanks, I prefer to keep them fresh by using them anyway. We get about 2 weeks between fills including lots of laundry.

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The large tanks do seem to last a while, even with a 6 year old on board. Unfortunately that also means I get to stand out in the freezing rain waiting for the large tanks to fill up again. We haven't tried the wash machine yet but that will add considerably to our usage as well.

Since the factory didn't install a shore water inlet and it was undoubtably owner installed, this is a description of those systems I have seen on my boats:

There is a valve, usually a hose bib type sticking out of the inside of the boat somewhere in the cockpit. It has a hose thread on it and you screw a water hose into it. If you want a pressure regulator, buy an RV type and screw it in the valve in between the hose. Might not be a bad idea as city water pressure can hit 90 psi and most boat 12V pumps only put out 40-50 psi. You don't want to blow out hose clamp fittings with too much pressure.

Most systems I have seen, including RVs do not have another valve inside which isolates the fresh water pump. The shore water inlet is plumbed with a tee to the discharge of the fresh water pump and the pump's valves prevent back flow. I guess you could install a valve to also prevent backflow, but I haven't seen it done.

David

Since fellow Krogen owners aren't much help yet, I'll describe my system: I have two fresh water inlets for connecting to a dock water supply, one aft and one forward. Both are female hose ends with hard rubber 'plugs' screwed tightly into them so that they don't leak when the system is pressurized by the boat's fresh water pump. There are pressure regulators in the boat's fresh water piping downstream of and not far from the inlets. I'm not sure what the regulators are set at. There does not appear to be either manual or auto valves that would keep the onboard water from leaving the boat through those inlets when the system is pressurized by the boat's fresh water pump.


When I want to use dock water, I turn off the boat's fresh water pump, remove the rubber male plug from the desired inlet, hook up the dock water to the inlet with a water hose safe for drinking water, and turn on the dock water.


That's all there is to it on my boat. You could try what I've suggested on yours, and if you don't have water pressure, then experiment with the valve you found downstream of your inlet.


Good luck!

Thanks all. I do this stuff for a living so I know how the systems work, and asked the question before thinking it through fully. As Terry pointed out, the saying "If you've seen one Krogen. you've seen one Krogen" is so true in so many ways. When people talk about factory options on their vessel, I think Krogen took this to mean absolutely, every, single part on the boat.
I will bite the bullet and trace out the water lines to see how my system works. Besides, I can be considerably warmer inside the hull looking at water lines than I would be outside on the dock hooking up the hose.

Leaving a pressurized garden hose hooked up to a boat in freezing weather could be a disaster.

We also have a shut off valve behind the washer/dryer for the city water. Our water connection is located on the outside wall under the steps on the port side. We abandoned ours in place. We filled it with 5200, disconnected it at the valve and capped it after two failures.

Stripper, I think having a shore water connection is situational. I also removed ours because of failures, I made a starboard cover plate in our cockpit location so if in the future I could use the hole in the bulkhead should a manufacturer ever build a reliable fitting. My shore water connection had a tee to the cockpit washdown faucet, so I’m pretty sure I could use the faucet with a double female hose connector and pressure reducer to connect dock water supply if needed.

New owner of KK42. Hull#47. (Same setup as Larry M.) PO said faucet head on port side under steps was city water inlet. Not to hijac the post but what / why for 2 electrical inlets Larry? Tried KK cruisers but no help there.

JC53 said:

New owner of KK42. Hull#47. (Same setup as Larry M.) PO said faucet head on port side under steps was city water inlet. Not to hijac the post but what / why for 2 electrical inlets Larry? Tried KK cruisers but no help there.

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John: 2-30 amp circuits. When we bought Hobo, she was real heavy on 120 vac usage.

Larry M said:

We also have a shut off valve behind the washer/dryer for the city water. Our water connection is located on the outside wall under the steps on the port side. We abandoned ours in place. We filled it with 5200, disconnected it at the valve and capped it after two failures.

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Thanks Larry. Our water inlet and shorepower inlets look identical to yours, with a bunch of fancy teak still in place on ours. I do mostly electrical work and didn't realize the inlets were so failure-prone. Our usage will probably be at the dock in the winter when the hoses are all frozen, and nowhere near a dock in the summer, so I should just look for a better way of filling tanks in the winter and call it good.


Hijacking my own thread, JC53, what was the name of the Krogen you purchased? I think we looked at all the ones for sale in WA, just wondering which one you bought?

Thanks Larry. Like Stripper I Have tons of questions and this is the only source of useful information.

Stripper, bought West Coast Spirit from PO on Whidbey Island in November. Rebuilt FL 120, stabilized, lots of neat stuff. I’m still trying to figure everything out but so far love the boat. Just finished LED conversion of everything. Had to take 8” of the mast and reconfigure to get it in the boat house. Trying to figure out electrical. 2 x 120 inlets and panel switches. Run one, run both? Manual switch for upper helm controls not working. Etc. etc. Joined KK Cruisers looking for tech info but it’s mostly social stuff.

LarryM, I see one electrical line coming onboard and two plugged in. Is the one line split?

JC53 said:

LarryM, I see one electrical line coming onboard and two plugged in. Is the one line split?

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No, there are 2 separate 30 cords coming in. The one on the right has a non-marine female plug on it. The black outlet above it and to the right of the city water inlet is for cable and phone, old school.

The city water inlet is a poor design location by Kady-Krogen IMHO. Why would you put a water inlet above 120 VAC? Any leaks or failure on the water line can't miss the live AC lines.

JC53 said:

Stripper, bought West Coast Spirit from PO on Whidbey Island in November. Rebuilt FL 120, stabilized, lots of neat stuff. I’m still trying to figure everything out but so far love the boat. Just finished LED conversion of everything. Had to take 8” of the mast and reconfigure to get it in the boat house. Trying to figure out electrical. 2 x 120 inlets and panel switches. Run one, run both? Manual switch for upper helm controls not working. Etc. etc. Joined KK Cruisers looking for tech info but it’s mostly social stuff.

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We had an offer on that boat and had a survey done. Deal fell apart after that. Glad you are happy with the purchase, they are fun little boats.


I think the AC on that boat is set up the same as ours, so it depends on what is available at the dock. If there are two 30A circuits at the dock, you can run (2) separate 30A shore cords to it for a total of 60A/120V power. If the dock has 50A power, they make a splitter to make one 50A into the (2) 30A you have on the boat. Otherwise, like our marina here there is just a single 30A service, so you use a splitter to go from (1) 30A at the dock to the (2) 30a at your boat.
From the factory ours had an electric stove/oven so it would have needed either 50 or 60A to run everything at the dock, or the generator.


Feel free to message me with electrical questions, it is what I do for a living and I'm now pretty familiar with the KK42, at least my KK42.

Larry M said:

The city water inlet is a poor design location by Kady-Krogen IMHO. Why would you put a water inlet above 120 VAC? Any leaks or failure on the water line can't miss the live AC lines.

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I would actually say that the shorepower inlets are the ones in the wrong place. Not only are they too close to the water inlet, but when it really rains our foredeck is draining right over the top of those. Moving them is on my list, but it is quite a ways down the list in importance.

Here’s what the back side of the city water looks like. As I mentioned, we abandoned ours.

Also noticed when it rains all the water from the foredeck runs down the side and onto the electrical inlets. Stripper, did you look at the boat in Canada? It was originally in Campbell River.

A guess. 2X30amp cables. 1 for the house 1 for the heat/AC. That is how mine are set up.
Easy to over load with 2 electric burners, microwave and AC hot water heater. Give serious consideration and install a 2000amp inverter..... run the microwave off, coffee pot or the toaster off it.

Water connection. If in doubt buy a pressure regulator for outside of the boat.
LOL Stand outside watching the water tanks filling? Get a 5gal bucket, time filling it.... Remember that figure.... when you need water, determine how much you need. Start the fill, start a timer, go inside and wait until the timer sounds. Go outside shut off the hose. I do that with my AT34.

OldDan1943 said:

LOL Stand outside watching the water tanks filling? Get a 5gal bucket, time filling it.... Remember that figure.... when you need water, determine how much you need. Start the fill, start a timer, go inside and wait until the timer sounds. Go outside shut off the hose. I do that with my AT34.

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Yeah, but you're in Florida. You are just going inside to get out of the sun. We haven't seen the sun here in weeks........

JC53 said:

Also noticed when it rains all the water from the foredeck runs down the side and onto the electrical inlets. Stripper, did you look at the boat in Canada? It was originally in Campbell River.

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We might have, we looked at a bunch. I only remember boat names, my wife even makes fun of me for it. I can't remember someones name that I have seen a dozen times, but I can tell you what kind of boat they own and what it's name is.

When it thaws out, you can use a flow meter with a shut off. You can set the time or number of gallons and not worry about over filling or sinking the boat. I've never used one but I have neighbors who swear by this type.


https://www.amazon.com/CONTINENTAL-Flow-Meter-Water-Timer/dp/B00CWC3CFE

Larry M said:

When it thaws out, you can use a flow meter with a shut off. You can set the time or number of gallons and not worry about over filling or sinking the boat. I've never used one but I have neighbors who swear by this type.


https://www.amazon.com/CONTINENTAL-Flow-Meter-Water-Timer/dp/B00CWC3CFE

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Kind of a fun looking little gadget. Cheap enough to try without feeling bad if it doesn't work. Hopefully once it warms up we will be off the dock and I'll just use the watermaker.

Stripper said:

Yeah, but you're in Florida. You are just going inside to get out of the sun. We haven't seen the sun here in weeks........

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You can go inside to get out of the cold.

FYI, the sun is easily recognized. It is a big yellow globe in the sky. It is very hot and until recently, was thought to be healthy. Now, we must lather ourselves up with sun screen before we go outside and only go outside when absolutely necessary.

Dock water inlet.

Connecting the boat directly to external water pressure is a recipe for disaster. The water tanks should be sealed and have overflow vents such that if you overfill them the water will spill over the side into the dock. I have seen boats fill up with water because of the pressurised water connections failing. If you fill the tanks normally you will know from the water gauge how long roughly they will take to fill. And when you get near to a full tank you can just watch the overflow to see when you should switch off the water.
Even if you forget to watch the overflow no problem will occur apart from wasting some fresh water over the side.
You certainly will not need to sit outside in the cold waiting for the tanks to fill.