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My Cal 29 has a deep bilge under the engine, under the step. When it fills up, it overflows into another bilge area under the cabin sole, where I can remove a floor panel to see it.
At that same bilge level, I can see the bilge extends forward under the shower drain.
Is there another deep bilge forward, that I can't see? That goes deep, below the level of the bilge under the cabin sole, like the one under my engine?
I have a 1974 Cal 29. It has a deep bilge just under the cabin step, roughly 2-3 ft. deep, basically starting where the batteries are and going forward about two feet where it steps up to the upper bilge which runs under the cabin sole and is about 1 ft. deep. The upper bilge runs forward under the bathroom floor following the keelson. There is open space forward of the bathroom but no deep bilge. There are cross pieces in the upper bilge and the bathroom which have limber holes in them so water in the forward areas will drain to the deep back bilge. A bilge pump with a long hose dropping down into the deep bilge will keep the upper bilge dry, except in emergencies.
You never want to have water in the upper bilge. This boat has a steel cross bar underneath and supporting the mast post called the transverse beam. If it rusts out you have a hell of a job cutting out the cabin sole and replacing it.
Concur with ensuring that water coming out of the head doesn't go up against the beam in the bilge aft of that. My head didnt have a drain hole in the floor. If one is there there should be drain tubing to move the water aft to the bilge by the cabin table. I have an electric pump in the bilge by the table and a manual gusher type pump for the deep bilge.
We owned a 1976 Cal 2-29 for, roughly, 26 years. (In some respects I wish we still owned her but that's another story.) The "bilge" under the engine is an "engine sump" and for all practical purposes should never collect very much water. If one has a classic "stuffing box" some will accumulate but there shouldn't be much. On our boat we had a small submersible bilge pump that we used to drain the sump. The effluent passed through a filter that absorbed oil, fuel etc. before it was discharged, in our case, into a bucket and then overboard. In extremis, we could run the discharge hose into the cockpit and out through the drain at the back of the cockpit well but we rarely ever did so. The bilge forward of the engine sump collects water that runs from the shower pan in the head, from the chain locker forward of the v-berth; and, unfortunately from the ice-box drain unless you have been wise enough to plug that or plumb it to a small pump that discharges to the sink drain. (That line, if you have it, needs an anti-siphon loop that has a tube leading up through the dish locker outboard of the sink to a point just under the side deck.)
Unfortunately, at least in our year/model, there was/is a deep "sump" forward of the encapsulated ballast, between the ballast and the forward/leading edge of the keel, that would/can fill up with bilge water and get quite rancid unless it was/is drained. Doing so involved laying on ones stomach and reaching as far forward under the floor boards along the center-line of the yacht as one could and feeding (in our case) a 1/2" dia length of tubing into the sump and patiently working it to the bottom (about 3 feet). I would attach that to our shop-vac and suction out whatever collected in the sump, which could get pretty nasty until we plumbed the ice-box drain to the sink as previously noted.
Once we learned how to properly seal the chain pipe on the foredeck, to take garden pressure-tank "showers" in the aft-end of the cockpit; and, sealed the ice-box drain, the only thing we had in our bilge was dust/cobwebs.
Unfortunately, at least in our year/model, there was/is a deep "sump" forward of the encapsulated ballast, between the ballast and the forward/leading edge of the keel, that would/can fill up with bilge water and get quite rancid unless it was/is drained.
Thanks everyone, and especially, svhylyte. This may confirm what has long been my suspicion, that there was another deep part forward of where I can see under the cabin floor. When I sail hard, heel, and pitch a lot, water seems to sometimes mysteriously appear in the upper bilges when the one under the engine is too low to cause that.
A full deep sump forward would cause that. And like you, it can be pretty rancid. I'll try to locate it with a hose.
How far forward was it? Because of the baffles/cross pieces, I can't reach with my arm forward at all. Can't reach past the bulkhead to the head compartment.
Was your 2nd deep sump forward of the mast? Head? Under the V-berth?
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