Marine head on land.

MrChristopher

MrChristopher

Junior Member
My SO and I acquired an Ericson 30+. It was on the hard when we bought it. There is some work to be done before putting her back in, and I have a dumb question. I have sailed and raced on other peoples boats since I was a kid, but this is the first that I have owned one big enough to have a head. Is there a way to use the head when it is on land? She raised the question, and for once I didn’t have a solid answer!
 
Alan Gomes

Alan Gomes

Sustaining Partner
Well, the answer is "probably."

If your boat has a properly plumbed holding tank (which it would unless the previous owner removed it), and if it is not already filled with "stuff," then you certainly *could* use it on the hard, just as you would if you were anchored out, on a mooring, etc. But generally, you will not want to leave it full for too terribly long, and I'm assuming that you have no means of emptying it until you can get to a pump out dock, i.e., once the boat is launched again.

For odor control, seriously consider Noflex Digester.
 
Alan Gomes

Alan Gomes

Sustaining Partner
MrChristopher said:
Do we just pour water in it? I wasn’t sure how to do it if It wasn’t in the water to pull from?
Click to expand...
Ah, yes. That is an issue.

A good thing to do regardless of your contemplated on-land scenario is to tee a line from the head sink into the salt water intake line for the head. That way, you can run fresh water through the pump by keeping the thru-hull closed, filling the sink with water, and using the pump on the head to draw the fresh water through the pump and into the bowl. That will be a good thing to do once you are using the boat as intended, because the fresh water rinse at the end of a trip flushes out the little marine critters that stay in the pump, die, and then stink. So that's a good mod to make regardless, and it will also solve your most immediate issue. You would, of course, need to have a source of water to pour into the sink, but I'm assuming that's not big deal.

Peggy Hall, perhaps the world's expert on marine sanitation (no joke!), discusses this mod here.
 
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