• Untitled Document

    Join us on March 29rd, 7pm EST

    for the CBEC Virtual Meeting

    All EYO members and followers are welcome to join the fun and get to know the guest speaker!

    See the link below for login credentials and join us!

    March Meeting Info

    (dismiss this notice by hitting 'X', upper right)

My deep bilge

gadangit

Member III
You would have bilge envy if you knew the depth of our bilge. We had to cut out the sole to gain access for cleaning out the 40+ years of accumulated gunk. It was an awful mess under there, use your imagination. Let me help: the shower did not have a separate sump.

It is cleanish now and the boat smells much better. I put a bilge pump on a stick that I lower down and that is just adequate for now. But it is a very awkward space and perhaps under appreciated by me. I can't put myself in any position that allows me to reach the bottom with my hand. So any dust, water, phone, etc. is hard to remove or quickly wipe up.

The bilge depth is on the trailing edge of our keel. Our keel is enclosed lead. For a variety of reasons, the foam that held the lead blocks in place had been eaten away by many years of exposure to oily, rusty, nasty water. So I gained access, did my best to scrape out the nastiest wet broken down foam and suck out the nasty water. Let it dry with assist by a hair dryer and then poured in two part foam to resecure the lead in place. Everything is glassed back together and mostly good as new.

I've been kicking around what to do, here are some options.
1. Nothing. It is a good deep bilge, quit complaining.
2. Fill with 2 part foam to a reasonable bilge depth and glass in a new bottom that is not so darn deep. Now I can properly install a couple of bilge pumps and wipe up at my leisure.
3. Fill with rocks/concrete/lead shot and then glass in a new bottom.
4. Incorporate an in-hull water tank. I've kicked this around enough, I think I can make this work. But it is the deepest part of the boat, am I asking for trouble?
5. Make provisions for a bladder tank in there. It would take some jiggering, but I think I can make that work. I'd still want to raise up the bottom to something accessible.

What would you do if you were gifted with a good deep bilge?

Chris
 

Dan Morehouse

Member III
I have a deep bilge in an envelope keel on a 32 year old wooden sailboat. It has lead shot for ballast, and the aftmost cavity in the keel has no lead. I tore half of it apart due to rot, and now am rebuilding. These keel cavities were previously sealed off from the rest of the hull, which was a bad idea; water got down there anyway, and after 32 years, the rot was off to the races.

My space is far too restricted for a bilge pump, so I am going to stick the end of a hose down to the bottom of this cavity and make it attachable to a hand bilge pump so I can keep any future water evacuated. And at winter layup, with the boat on its trailer, I'll run a fan down there for a week to dry things out good.

But if I had a keel cavity big enough to be considering tankage, I'd vote for the bladder. The water in there won't get contaminated by other unspeakable bilge occupants. And I'd stick the end of a hose down there with it so I could suck out any stray water, which you can bet the farm will find its way down there.

As I've said before, access is the holy grail of boat maintenance. I'd never give up any kind of access to any part of or place on a boat anymore without a really compelling reason.
 

paul culver

Member III
If you search this forum you should be able to find a lively discussion on this subject, including filling the space with concrete. The "sump" is considered to be an Achilles heel on our boats if you hit something hard while moving in reverse. I occasionally fill mine up with water and bilge cleaner and let it slosh around for awhile before pumping it out. Since I went to a dripless shaft log the only water I get in there is drainage from the ice box.

Paul
E29 "Bear"
 
Top