I'm in the process of buying a 1995 370 Sundancer. ( beautiful condition , owned by Dr. who used it very little. ) when checking things over the first thing I noticed is the holding tank discharge hose on the bottom of the tank that runs towards the stern is connected to a ball valve that would be bolted to the bottom of the boat.....the ball valve is not bolted to boat at all and there is no hole in the boat either for it to discharge waste . I haven't really crawled back there to grab it , it looks like it is attached to a square block of inch thick material but not bolted just kind of sits there......I'm wondering if that's how they came and if you want to discharge thru the bottom you have to cut a hole and attach it (which I know is illegal ) the strange thing is , the ball valve is in the open position ?
Holding Tank Discharge thru bottom of hull
- Thread starter Mike370
- Start date
Stee6043
Well-Known Member
It's only illegal in certain places.
Photo's may help. The way you describe it, to me it sounds a prior owner fabbed something up. Maybe got cold feet when the final step was putting a big ole hole in the hull
Photo's may help. The way you describe it, to me it sounds a prior owner fabbed something up. Maybe got cold feet when the final step was putting a big ole hole in the hull
be_prepared
Active Member
- Oct 12, 2015
- 377
- Boat Info
- 2002 Sea Ray Sundancer 340DA
- Engines
- Twin Mercruiser Horizon 8.1 inboards
I think the discharge is usually at the top of the tank, with a feeder tube that draws from the bottom. On my Dometic unit, there's a discharge on top that goes to the pump out fitting on deck, and another going to the macerator pump and then to the thru hull for overboard discharge. There's no fitting on the bottom of the tank, but I'm sure some designs are different. As Stee6043 said, maybe this is a home rigged system, I guess a bottom drain might allow you to be able to drain the tank for winterizing or something? Wouldn't want that to drain down into the bilge though, yuck. Or someone was trying to back fit a macerator/overboard dump into an older system and decided to bail out on the idea? Why not just cap the fitting at the tank if that was the case? Photos definitely would help.
JimG
Well-Known Member
- Nov 4, 2008
- 6,085
- Boat Info
- 2007 310 DA
Kohler 5ECD
- Engines
- Twin 350 Mags
Raw Water Cooled
V-Drives
Usually you drill the 2" hole first, then insert the brass coupling from the bottom and thread it into the ball valve. Mounting on a riser pad (typically glassed in from the factory) is common. You would then spin the ball valve where you want it and drive 3 screws to keep it from moving.
It wouldn't surprise me if there is actually a hole through the hull and the only thing that wasn't done was to add the 3 screws.
It wouldn't surprise me if there is actually a hole through the hull and the only thing that wasn't done was to add the 3 screws.
