How do you winterize this?? Stuffing box with it's own seacock.

[Bene505]

I have a stuffing box that has it's own seacock, so there must be water in it somewhere.

Do I need to winterize it, and if so, how?

I'm guessing that I'll have to disconnect the hose and pour antifreeze in. It looks like the hose has never been disconnected before, but this is probably the boat's first time below feeezing on the hard.



And here's a close-up of the connection.

[JHJensen]

Brad,

You don't have to do anything since your vessel is on the hard. The reason there is a seacock there is because you have a long stern tube and it needs to have water flow in order to "lube and cool" your stuffingbox and the cutless bearing. Many other boats accomplish the same thing with the input taken from the rawwater discharge on the engine.

If you were going to wet store it would be a different story as to how you would winterize this system.

All you have to do with your sea **** is open it and make sure the water is drained out... the rest of the water will have drained out of the outboard end of the tube when the vessel was hauled.

Your other seacocks will vary depending on what they are attached to. Things like cockpit drains and sink drain you can just leave open and they should have drained the boat was hauled. If you are not sure pour some nontoxic antifreeze through to clear any low points and look for it to drain out on the outside.

On sumps..open the seacock and pour some nontox into the sump and run through the pump until you see pink on the outside.

I believe you said they yard already winterized the engine so that is done, except possibly for the strainer and raw water intake seacock. Just open the seacock and let it drain out. If your inline strainer has a plastic bowl you don't want to leave it full of antifreeze as it and antifreeze don't get along.

You can also blow out lines using a shop vac reversed.

With your seacocks the main thing to remember is make sure the valve has no water in it in the closed position. So any that can self drain you just leave open. Others you just flush with nontox to clear the lines and they can be closed after that. Cockpit drains are the exception. On the hard I like to leave them open so there is no chance of water backing up into the cockpit and freezing and as the snow melts it just runs out. I do this even if the boat is covered as well.


For your head hopefully you drained and flushed the holding tank before she was hauled. The rest is simply putting some antifreeze through the head to clear any water. I don't know how your system is set up. If you have a diverter valve before the holding tank so you can go direct over the side... pmp to that first and look for antifreeze coming outside through the hull discharge. The close the diverter and direct discharge to the holding tank and put enough into the tank to protect it. The rest of the system is self explanitory assuming you did drain the holding tank before she was hauled....other wise it could be fun!

John

[Bene505]

Originally Posted by JHJensen

Brad,
You don't have to do anything since your vessel is on the hard. The reason there is a seacock there is you have a long stern tube and it needs to have water in order to "lube and cool" your box.

If you were going to wet store it would be a different story.

John

Except that there's water in there and the temperature is dropping. Will I find a burst stuffing box in a week? Ice can really do nasty things like that.

[JHJensen]

Originally Posted by Bene505

Except that there's water in there and the temperature is dropping. Will I find a burst stuffing box in a week? Ice can really do nasty things like that.

Brad,

Did you read the rest of what I wrote? If that seacock is left open it should drain...or I could be missing something here.

John,

PS Just sent you a PM with my number. We can clear this up faster that way.

[Bene505]

Thanks John, I see the rest of your post now. Thanks for an enlightening conversation.

Regards