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Went to the boat for a sail..and its Flooded!!!

7K views 35 replies 21 participants last post by  WDS123 
#1 ·


Went to the boat for a quick sail...opened it up, looked in and saw the floor flooded by a few inches...I hit the switch for the bilge pump which is on auto, and no pump...So I proceeded to wet-vac the boat to remove the water and see what it was. My initial thought was the head exploded from the heat...nope thats salt water and its pretty clean. So its coming in the boat...from where? The packing gland is now my thought. It was dripping a bit more than I liked...I talked to the boat yard that hauled it out last year then replaced the stuffing box and they said a few extra drips is better than no drips. Called up KJ who knows the boat well and he said lets look at the packing gland...a STREAM of water was flowing from it. Once I got the bilge dry, I looked at the bilge pump and the positive power wire was broken off. A week ago it was working fine. My initial though since it was Saturday evening was fix the bilge, keep an eye on it until Monday and take it to the boat yard. I called Pat from Balboa Boat Yard who did the work on it last year. He wasnt there but I left a message. He called me back from Lake Arrowhead (great guy!) and told me how to adjust the packing gland. It seemed a bit daunting...but what choice did I have? Grabbed a big channel lock and 90 seconds later the leak was fixed. Now to clean it all up tomorrow...never got to go on that sail...glad this happened in the slip and not 20+ miles offshore. Tomorrow Im going to look at the failed bilge pump...I connected it to new power leads and it fired up..so I'll look at that in more detail...Maybe I'll get that sail after all! The above pic is my initial shock...the ones below are of the water cleaned up...and the packing gland before I cleaned up the area and fixed the leak. You can actually see the stream of water coming from the bottom! I have a second bilge pump a tad bit higher at the lower part of the engine compartment that is HUGE and thats so if the water gets high enough that one will kick on. The water was nowhere near this high. Also nothing was damaged other than the wood covering the bilge which needed replacing anyway...so all in all not too bad of a day! Its still a good day when working on the boat!



 
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#2 ·
Been there, done that.
Glad you caught it in time.

Almost 10 years ago we had an automatic sensor hooked up to our bilge pump. We also had a questionable stuffing box at the time. The automatic sensor pumped out quite a bit of water so that we were not as concerned about the leak as we should have been. Left the boat alone for too long and found 6" of water above the cabin sole. Water got into the engine oil, the batteries were shot and lots of water had to be bailed by hand at the mooring.
Shortly thereafter I ripped out the automatic sensor and we tightened the stuffing box. I have since been quite happy not having an automatic bilge pump that only hid problems from me and drained my batteries.
If you can get to your boat once or twice a week you should be fine without an automatic bilge pump. I feel it is better to know when water is getting into my boat then not knowing how much water the bilge pump has pumped out in my absence.
This is kind of a philosophical question, as in, is it half full or half empty (or do you prefer brunettes to blonds).
As a compromise I'd keep your Maxi bilge pump on automatic in case of the catastrophic leak but keep your Mini bilge pump on manual operation only. At least this way you will know when there is water getting inside your cabin. If your bilge pumps are all on automatic it is always 'out of sight, out of mind'.

Good catch.
 
#3 ·
Almost the same thing hapenned to me last year (2 weeks after getting the boat). I had a leaky raw water hose. Small leak but the pump did not engage for some reason.

I was lucky, I had a deep and large bilge and nothing was flooded but the water was almost at the sole board level (on my boat the bilge runs almost the whole length of the cabin).

Lesson learned
 
#4 · (Edited)
Good work !

Another argument for Bill Schock's " shallow bilge - strong hull" design philosophy. Bill recognized that cutting a hole in the hull diaphragm and creating a deep sump and then attaching a keel to the sump was flawed:

1) this is an inherently weak structural design with the biggest loads (keel) having plenty of opportunity for weak joints. The hull diaphragm is weakened by a big hole where it should be strongest.

2) big sump means needing to make the keel wider to fit a pump in there - wide keel = slow

3) big sump hides lots of water and lots of potential issues. Newport discovered a potentially catastrophic situation precisely because his S30 doesn't have a huge sump where water collects out-of sight out of mind. Newport found the root cause of the leak a d repaired it immediately because the shallow bilge hides zero water. Imagine if instead, Newport had a boat with a sump that held 15 gallons of water deeply hidden under the sole....he would not have know he had a serious leak until he would be outside !
 
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#15 ·
LOL! Seriously dude! Do you see every post as an opportunity to make some kind of sales pitch for your company? Do you honestly believe that any yacht designer would chose to make a fat keel just so he could have more room for a pump in the bilge? I am sure the shallow bilge is more a result of the cabin sole being structural liner, and the desire to maximize headroom within the designed hull, more than a concern for not "hiding water"!

By the way, Bill Schock did not design the Santana 30, Shad Turner did.

I agree with you that the Santana 30 is a solid, well built boat but trying to put some kind of positive spin on every aspect of the boat, or slip your advertising videos into any thread you can just makes you come across as some kind of used car salesman!
 
#5 ·
The same thing happened to me when I got my Santana. We bought it from out of town and had it trucked in, and when the boat was put in the water the packing was leaking very badly. Being my first inboard I had no experience with such things, but I figured "Theres a bit nut, and threads where the leak is, I guess I'll try tightening it!". Fortunately I had my work van with me so I grabbed a pipe wrench and went for it! It was the very first "repair" I ever did on my new boat!

Newport,

Don't you have a manual bilge pump installed? My manual pump would have removed that much water in under 5 minutes! I would hate to be dependent on a little electric pump at sea!
 
#9 · (Edited)
This is what I did. Had a small, steady leak from a hose fitting that went undetected because the bilge pump (automatic) was evacuating the water every few hrs. Well, several years ago I arrived to find the bilge pump failed (debris in the stainer) and water everywhere. Bailed her out and found the offending hose fitting.... The bilge pump, until it failed, kept us from realizing a leak existed. I've since wired in a meter that measures the number of bilge pump on/off cycles. Check it every time I get to the boat to see how often it activated.....
 
#8 ·
I have a deep sump/bilge area (the abyss) where my pumps drain from. The large pump is a standard Rule submersible which sits down there somewhere (actually, I have it mounted on a plate which has a line on it to get it up if necessary--it's out of arms reach), the other is an old belt driven, non-submersible that is mounted on a bulkhead. I rewired the entire system with float-less switches that are both mounted, ONE ABOVE THE OTHER, on a pc. of s.s. flat bar that hangs down into the bilge. Two pumps, with switches at different levels IMO is a good idea, especially since the second belt-driven pump is so noisy it would wake the dead! It could also be easily connected to an alarm. In addition to these, I have two manual pumps-one in the cockpit, one on the galley bulkhead that can be operated from below. Electric pumps are great but can go out along with the rest of the electric things.
 
#10 ·
I have so little cofidence in automatic bilge pumps that i have mine rigged only manually turn on off,i keep a constant check on all thru hulls and also the packing gland,in my opinion most people put too much faith in auto pumps,I've never saw a maintained packing gland suddenly sink a boat,hoses are usually the culprit [fewer thru hulls]and regular inspections are a must,amazingly most boats sink drains are only cheap metal not stainless,I've saw 2 different boats sink because the sink hose attachments corroded away allowing the hose to fall down below the waterline,the cockpit drain is the other likely problem,i clean mine at least once per month even in the winter when i don't stay on the boat,btw a older boat sank at a marina i was at and it had 3 automatic pumps on the other hand i've saw basicly abandoned remaiun floating for years
 
#13 ·
#12 ·
I check the float switch and the connections leading to the float switch and pump every week. Additionally, I keep 2 spare float switches onboard - just in case. At least once a week I check the packing gland drip, which is a real PITA because you have to be a contortionist in order to see it - even with a flashlight. Must have been a really small, skinny person that replaced the packing gland material a few years ago. This fat, old man would never be able to get into a space that tiny, let alone repack the fitting.

Cheers,

Gary :cool:
 
#16 · (Edited)
SchockT,

Headroom did certainly come into play with WD's design philosophy. Thanks for mentioning another positive aspect of the method. Shad Turner worked closely with the company to incorporate their build methods.

No designer would willingly make a keel fatter. However when faced with a design brief that wants a deep sump, he'll have little choice but to make a wider keel.

Many sailors do not know about these design philosophies. It seems reasonable to point them out. Sorry if it sounds like crass commercialism.

Erricson also believed in the hull diaphragm philosophy.

As for the videos - they are meant to entertain and amuse., little more.
 
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#18 ·
I wasn't aware that Bill Schock and Bob Perry frequented this board. I would dearly love to have a conversation with someone who was involved in the design of my boat, and other similar boats of the era. I am sure he could offer some useful insight that the marketing department didn't include in the brochures!
 
#21 ·
I have one of these on my boat:

Boatsense (TM)

For two years it has worked flawlessly.
Some may say that is a lot of money, but if my boat sinks, probably won't be able to afford another of equally quality and rigged/equiped they way I want. In winter the harbor surge can be huge, would be nice to know my boat has broken lose and maybe getting holed by a piling before she sinks. You can hook to a smoke alarm to warn of fire danger, or to your hatch to warn of someone breaking into the boat- limitless possiblities. Good to have if I need to leave the boat for several weeks.
 
#23 ·
NewportNewbie,

I am curious, does the sump under your engine have limber holes so that it drains into your bilge? My boat doesn't, so the water from my packing accumulates under the engine. Once that sump overflows I see a telltale trickle across the cabin sole to the bilge. It is a bit annoying to have the wet floor when it happens, but so far I have resisted drilling holes. This summer while we were cruising my engine developed an oil leak, and had it not been for that teltale trickle of oil across the floor, I may not have known about it until I lost oil pressure. As it was the leak was easily repaired, and the oil didn't even make it into the bilge. It was contained for the most part under the engine where it was easy to clean up.
 
#24 ·
Yes. It goes from the engine compartment directly into the bilge. Mine was designed that way. When I bought it the whole was plugged by a previous owner and it was dammed up so it was accumulating in front of the large pump under the stairs and never getting to the bilge. The boat yard removed that when I had it pulled and made sure I had 2 working bilge pumps. I would check and see if your was not plugged previously. Sounds like you have something similar to what I had.
 
#25 ·
Hard to tell from your photo, but looks like your bilge pump wiring might be getting wet. If the spice connections are not 100% water tight this will lead to corrosion and failure of the wire. You mentioned the + lead broke loose. Stray current will also lead to underwater metal corrosion (electoloysis). Try to make your pump/float switch connections well above high bilge water level to the connection never gets wet.
 
#30 ·
Two auto bilge pumps are mandatory in my book, the second float switch being just a few inches above the first. Both pump intakes should be at the bottom of the bilge. Plus a manual hand pump.

For real safety, put an alarm on another float switch with a buzzer in the cockpit. Good for you when underway. Better when those around the marina complain about your buzzer and someone comes to see why its going off.
 
#31 ·
Generally it is good practice to keep nasty bilge water from engine sump away from rest of bilge and from illegally being discharged overboard
 
#33 ·
Yes, well Bill Schock definitely doesn't post here since he passed away in 2009! No word on whether Tom Schock comes to these boards.

WD Schock is now owned by one Alexander Vucelic von Raduboj. As far as I can tell he has no notable yachting background, although he "dabbled in sailboat design while in architecture school".
 
#35 ·
It happens to all of us. I'm not buying the "out of sight out of mind" comment of having a good sized bilge though. The only thing not having a bilge buys you is a wet floor and whatever happens to be near it quicker. Have been making a point of lifting a floorboard when I'm passing by regularly and also pushing the manual override on the bilge switch until I hear it suck air when I leave the boat. This quickly tells me if there has been excessive leakage based on how long it take to hear the sucking air sound. I AM going to add a second pump with a switch though.
 
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