[E32-3] Bilge smell - burnt popcorn?

Check the drain hole at the bottom of the mast. It is located in the bilge at the back of the mast. If it is plugged due To dirt or growth, the water can fill to a height that puts enough pressure on the dam to leak into the bilge. It is surprising how much water comes down the mast during a moderate rainstorm. The drain hole is pretty small so it needs cleaning periodically. I use a piece of hard wire for the task. If the water stays in the mast, it can grow unpleasant smelling bacteria. If this is the problem, I would temporarily reseal the mast and put some bleach-water mixture inside the mast. This will kill the bacteria. If you don't take a step like this, the bacteria can go dormant until the next rainstorm. I used an unused halyard exit above the deck to snake in a small tube attached to a bottle to get the bleach in then filled the rest in with a hose attached to a sprinkler reducer and small hose. You can also use a funnel attached to the tube. I left the bleach-water in the mast for about two hours then unplugged the drain. Have not had any problems since and the bilge is sweet smelling.

Here's maybe a dumb one - if I go to Home Depot and buy a bunch of Simple Green to flood the bilge (combined with hose water), do y'all disable the bilge pumps to let the bilge stay "full"? Or is the half-full that the automatic bilge pump is capable of enough to get some good swishing / cleaning going on?

Sati said:

Here's maybe a dumb one - if I go to Home Depot and buy a bunch of Simple Green to flood the bilge (combined with hose water), do y'all disable the bilge pumps to let the bilge stay "full"? Or is the half-full that the automatic bilge pump is capable of enough to get some good swishing / cleaning going on?

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Cleaning solutions such as Simple Green don't work instantly the way bleach does on stains in all those Oxyclean commercials - it takes time. So I would suggest you disable the automatic bilge pump, add Simple Green and water as high as you can, and keep it there for as long as overnight if possible (after closing all of your through hulls just in case). The problem then is what to do with that bilge water? If it's really full of a lot of detergent and gunk you might not want to just pump it overboard - at least not in the marina.

u079721 said:

The problem then is what to do with that bilge water? If it's really full of a lot of detergent and gunk you might not want to just pump it overboard - at least not in the marina.

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Any thoughts here? I'm pretty confident based on what I've encountered so far that there's no oil or fuel in the shmutz appearing in the bilge, but agree that dumping it in a yacht brokers moorage is not the most neighborly action. I dumped a bucket in a local porta potty last time.

Simple Green (the new version at least) is considered pretty environmentally friendly, so if there isn't a lot of oil in the bilge I think the main issue with pumping it out into a marina would be the sudsing and visible foam. On a mooring in a bay this wouldn't be as much of a concern. I would think the worst case would be to pump the water into a 5 gallon pail or two to dump into a storm drain ashore. Using less Simple Green in the bilge would minimize the effect, but also be less effective in the bilge. The rinse water from a washing machine has lots of foam in it too as it goes down the drain, and people woulnd't think twice about that at home. But in a marina or harbor?

So went back in the bilge today. I'm pretty confident I don't have TAFG drains built in, so I understand an alternative is to drill holes. Where should these go? One at the bottom of each bilge pan?

You can see where Ericson put them in Post #13 above.

Sati said:

Here's maybe a dumb one - if I go to Home Depot and buy a bunch of Simple Green to flood the bilge (combined with hose water), do y'all disable the bilge pumps to let the bilge stay "full"? Or is the half-full that the automatic bilge pump is capable of enough to get some good swishing / cleaning going on?

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I don't know if there's a definitive answer. Partly because there's no way to do much to create a good scrubbing action in the areas under the TAFG - they'll basically be filled, and then emptied, but no real "swishing". But also because.... there's no way to get all the water out from under the TAFG. The way the grid is designed, there are always going to be pockets that you can't get to, and they'll hold water until they feel like letting it out (heeling, etc). Let's face it, there's no way to know what's under there or when it is clean.

Best you can probably do is "flush" it from time to time. I seem to do that each spring. It's probably more of a symbolic exercise than anything else.

I generally disconnect the bilge pump and pull it out of the sump, pour in a bunch of West Marine bilge-cleaner, and then run a hose into the bilge. I have limber holes in the forward and aft faces of each bilge pocket, plus access to the area under the mast step through a hole made for the keel bolt. Once the bilge is full, I ...uh... promote some flow using a 120v utility pump from my garage. Stick the outlet hole into a limber-hole, put the inlet hose into a pocket that has a bunch of water in it, and... mini-jacuzzi! (laughing)

Then I let the electric bilge pump draw down the bulk of the water, and use the manual pump for the rest. It's part of my springtime ritual, to make sure that the pumps are working as they should. When I'm done, at the very least, there will be some citrus-scented bilge-cleaner helping to dilute whatever is growing in the dark.

ObNote, the West Marine "Pure Oceans" bilge cleaner doesn't foam up, smells nice, and claims to be biodegradable and environmentally "gentle". I have no more qualms about pumping it out into the marina, than about rinsing boat-soap off into the water when I wash the deck.

https://www.westmarine.com/buy/pure...&creative=73254976877781&device=c&matchtype=e

$.02
Bruce

Christian Williams said:

You can see where Ericson put them in Post #13 above.

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Christian, I cannot easily tell from the photo which bilge area is being shown, is the area before or aft of the mast?

Ok now it's gotten super mysterious. Still been some relatively dark water in the bilge...pumped it out, put an inch or two or Simple Green in, went sailing. Now it looks cloudy with.....sparkles?! What the hell are those? Tiny metallic flecks. And is that an oil sheen on the top of the water (more noticeable in second pic?)

I want to pump it clean and start fresh again but don't want to dump any oil...so that's no good

Geoff, cut some West Marine oil absorbent pads into strips and place them in the bilge bottom, whether it's wet or dry. The pads will soak up oil and diesel but not water.

I left strips in my bilges for about a year after I had a diesel spill from my tank sender. It took about that long for all the seepage to find its way into the bilge.

yowza

Sati said:

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Ok now it's gotten super mysterious. Still been some relatively dark water in the bilge...pumped it out, put an inch or two or Simple Green in, went sailing. Now it looks cloudy with.....sparkles?! What the hell are those? Tiny metallic flecks. And is that an oil sheen on the top of the water (more noticeable in second pic?)

I want to pump it clean and start fresh again but don't want to dump any oil...so that's no good

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Hey -

if you want the PO to come by and say it never looked like that when I had it just let me know. I am in the marina painting my bilge this weekend.

G