Sinking at dock averted - now what?

[sharonov]

Curiosity saved the cat. A routine check of the bilge before going for a day sail showed a bit more water than usual. Hmm.. why would normally dry aft bilge pockets be wet? Let's look under the sink:

Aha! Here is our culprit! That cheap ribbed hose from two cockpit scuppers to the under the sink thru-hull has sprained the leak. Gives me a new appreciation for the notion that all underwater hoses need to be treated the same way we treat boat hull.
Off we go to Westmarine to buy wet exhaust rated rubber hose. Now we just disconnect the old hose and use it as a messenger line to pull new one in. Right? Well, not so fast. The old hose is stuck somewhere between liner and hull or maybe zip tied to the liner where I cannot see and just would not budge. Has anybody replaced that hose? Any advice is appreciated.

 

[Loren Beach]

Good Catch!
Time to replace old hoses. You might look at my blog post for replacing our bilge hoses. Hopefully some owners of sister ships can weigh in with suggestions for the access difficulty.

 

[Christian Williams]

I believe there is access to that hose under the water heater. Maybe the water heater can be unscrewed, pushed aside, and the plywood it rests on removed. I'm just going by old 32-3 photos, so take this with a grain of salt. Isn;t that white hose visible here?



Or, I'd probably consider just hacking off the trapped hose and letting it remain in the TAFG. If it has a cable tie on it maybe it won't roll around. I think I could run a new hose under there without the help of the old one by using a fish tape.

But first, of course, I would use violence and try very hard to pull the tooth, maybe even using a block and tackle on the hose. It ought to be punished for what it almost did.

 

[sharonov]

Thank you Christian. All your suggestions have been thoroughly pondered over. I also added Shelman's idea of running thinner hose inside the old one. In the end brutal violence had the most appeal. With admiral doing the pushing and me the pulling the recalcitrant hose moved a bit, then a bit more. We cleaned the forward end of the old hose with alchohol and duct-taped it to the new hose. Pushing and pulling ensued again now with generous application of soapy water. No go. The liner opening was too small for the duck tape and new hose. Time to dremel the hack out of that liner and enlarge the opening. Success! As soon as the new smooth hose got past the obstruction it slid in rather effortlessly. Those dinky ribbed hoses are trouble. Oh, and I did find zip tie on the old hose under the liner. Seriously, who does that? Now just need to hook it up to the thru-hull and the tee. July afternoon in Houston, arghh.. I recon that beer in the the fridge sounds like a much better idea.

 

[1911tex]

Whew great catch !!! Pre flight...er, I mean pre sail...!!