Marco Flamingo
Guru
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2020
- Messages
- 1,112
- Location
- United States
- Vessel Name
- CHiTON
- Vessel Make
- Tung Hwa Clipper 30
I had a manual bilge pump (Guzzler 10 gpm) mounted on the rear bulkhead in my engine room. It appeared to be original. The intake hose went the length of the ER at deck level (behind a fuel tank) and down the ER front bulkhead to the bilge. The discharge hose was coiled, but apparently was to be fed through a screw-on access port in the rear bulkhead and out through the lazarette hatch (when opened) and overboard. Not only was the run long (30' total), complicated, and difficult to set up (10 minutes?), but being on my hands and knees down in the aft end of the engine room reaching between the genny and the hot water tank is not where I would want to be pumping in an emergency.
I removed it and was looking at other possible locations. But how many trawlers have a manual bilge pump aboard and how many of those are really just a "feel good" installation like my original setup?
I'm presently reworking my 12V bilge pumps and have to wonder if something like adding the auxiliary pump in a Home Depot bucket (in another thread here) would be where I should spend my time, effort, and money. I understand that if my engine can't start, the genny can't start, the batteries are dead or shorted from high water, a manual pump would still work. But if the batteries were flooded from high water, there is no way I'm going into the engine room to setup and use a little manual pump. Time to change from pump mode to swim mode.
Thoughts on the value of a 10 gpm manual bilge pump?
I removed it and was looking at other possible locations. But how many trawlers have a manual bilge pump aboard and how many of those are really just a "feel good" installation like my original setup?
I'm presently reworking my 12V bilge pumps and have to wonder if something like adding the auxiliary pump in a Home Depot bucket (in another thread here) would be where I should spend my time, effort, and money. I understand that if my engine can't start, the genny can't start, the batteries are dead or shorted from high water, a manual pump would still work. But if the batteries were flooded from high water, there is no way I'm going into the engine room to setup and use a little manual pump. Time to change from pump mode to swim mode.
Thoughts on the value of a 10 gpm manual bilge pump?