330 Express: Great place for a backup-backup-backup bilge pump

[Flot]

I was suffering from a pretty wet stinky bilge in my 330 express, for a number of different reasons. But mostly, the 1500 gph rule pumps that were in there would still leave about an inch of water sitting in the bilge.

As I was digging around, I discovered the aft floor compartment in my aft cabin. In my boat (not positive this was factory) this rear box was getting water in it, because the 6" deck plate in the back of it (aha) wasn't completely watertight. So if the bilge had 4" of water in it, that box had 1" in the bottom. Now that I'm saying all this I'm suspicious that deck plate WASN'T factory so would be very interesting to hear if it wasn't and on most boats that compartment is watertight? There's a good few inches between the back wall of that "bin" and the rear bulkhead. Mine had some long-since-unused raytheon sensor in there.

In either case - I popped that plate out and installed one of the "electronic timer-based" 500 gph rule bilge pumps that everyone hates via a little 5 minute epoxy in the strainer basket. I plumbed that to a new 3/4 line, which I ran across into the port side aft cabin wall compartment, behind the freshwater/washdown pumps and out the side.

Voila. Since I'm on shorepower I don't mind the occasional bilge check - you DO hear it in the cabin if nothing else is running - but it is a small enough pump and that location seems just right that it's sucking out a good bit of water that was otherwise sitting amidships.

 

[seasick]

As long as you are on shore power, it should be OK but in general, I don't like those pumps. I hear too many stories of batteries being run down and bilges subsequently flooding. One piece of advice is to make sure that the forward pump is wired to a different battery that the aft pump. That will reduce the possibility of two dead pumps due to a dead battery

 

[grady33]

I keep all thru hills closed when not running anything. I used to get a little water in forward bilge and would vacuume it out with one of those ones that sit on top of 5 gal bucket. I think the water was coming in thru windless and also from AC. This year though I don’t seem to have much water in there. What I usually do it run the bilge pumps for 30 secs as I’m almost back to dock. That seems to remove most of the water. I also upgraded my bilge pumps to the Johnson ones with electronic sensors a few years back.

we put in a flush mount B175 HW transducer 2 years ago - yes I sawed a nice hole in the bottom of the boat in the aft bilge area and the hull was very very solid - no wood whatsoever. I know there is a little wood in the transom though.

 

[Flot]

As long as you are on shore power, it should be OK but in general, I don't like those pumps. I hear too many stories of batteries being run down and bilges subsequently flooding.

I generally agree with you, but I’ve had float switches stick before as well. This pump was small enough that I’m less worried about battery drain and failure. I’m hopeful that these pumps have gotten better the years.

But yes, I prefer to have two pumps in each bilge location, one small and one large, wired to different battery banks.

The real point of my post was the location, it was a convenient place to stuff a pump compared to either the forward or aft boxes which are crammed with thru hulls etc.

I should clarify too that the water in my bilge is 90% rainwater, I’m tackling the aft scuppers and rear deck this fall.