DIY Dry Bilge System

[Blueone]

I have ran for years with a dry bildge…. Why would you need a system to pump water out of the bilge….. can’t the intrusion be fixed

 

[b_arrington]

I have ran for years with a dry bildge…. Why would you need a system to pump water out of the bilge….. can’t the intrusion be fixed

Some boats are a little more wet than others. Take the design of my cockpit. It has drains the the corners, but the floor hatch is the middle of the transom entryway. As a result it needs 2 drains under the hatch to handle runoff. If they get clogged or there's an exceptionally heavy rain, I'll get some overflow into the storage area below.

 

[bfernald0]

I have ran for years with a dry bildge…. Why would you need a system to pump water out of the bilge….. can’t the intrusion be fixed

It's a valid question. After much investigation and multiple haulouts, I located and remedied the source of the saltwater in the engine room bilge. When it rains heavily--which it doesn't do often in SoCal--I get water down there. I have freshwater flush attachments in the transom locker. When the hose is hooked up, you get some water down there. Etc. etc. I could trace down and probably remedy each and every source, but the installation of a dry bilge system seems easier.

 

[scrumper]

Doing the same here with my '81 310. Mostly it's rainwater ingress on my boat, and freshwater smells just awful when it's been stagnant for a while. I've finally had enough of both the old boat smell and hand-pumping and drying the bilge after every goddamn rainstorm. Both suck, I don't want to choose between them anymore.

Got some 3/8" ID vinyl hose, coax faceplates, Scotchbrite sponges, and 3/8-1/2 barb fittings from the local hardware store, and a Seaflow diaphragm pump, an in-line strainer, and a timer (to go in the galley) on the way from Amazon. I am going to rig this to cover both the midships and aft sump, both in the engine room. I'll manually swap them over until I'm comfortable that it works well, then make a suction manifold and go down to 1/8" tubing per that ancient Catalina owner's club article that started this all off for everyone. The only thing I'm not completely sure on is where to route the drain hose. Right now I think the scupper drains that go from the cockpit through the engine room and out the transom might be the best bet - I want to leave the bilge pump hoses well alone.

I'm in to this for maybe $60 in parts which compares really well to the off-the-shelf products. I don't need an app for this omg.

 

[bfernald0]

Doing the same here with my '81 310. Mostly it's rainwater ingress on my boat, and freshwater smells just awful when it's been stagnant for a while. I've finally had enough of both the old boat smell and hand-pumping and drying the bilge after every goddamn rainstorm. Both suck, I don't want to choose between them anymore.

Got some 3/8" ID vinyl hose, coax faceplates, Scotchbrite sponges, and 3/8-1/2 barb fittings from the local hardware store, and a Seaflow diaphragm pump, an in-line strainer, and a timer (to go in the galley) on the way from Amazon. I am going to rig this to cover both the midships and aft sump, both in the engine room. I'll manually swap them over until I'm comfortable that it works well, then make a suction manifold and go down to 1/8" tubing per that ancient Catalina owner's club article that started this all off for everyone. The only thing I'm not completely sure on is where to route the drain hose. Right now I think the scupper drains that go from the cockpit through the engine room and out the transom might be the best bet - I want to leave the bilge pump hoses well alone.

I'm in to this for maybe $60 in parts which compares really well to the off-the-shelf products. I don't need an app for this omg.

Bill at Neptune specifically advised NOT to splice the output into a bilge pump line, and advised to use a deck drain overboard line. Thats what I'm going to do.

 

[bfernald0]

Well, I installed the seaflo system in the forward bilge, to be followed by the Neptune system in the engine room. The seaflo system has a much larger footprint for what it is. I wired and plumbed it into the existing shower sump box. I poured a glass of water into the bilge, turned the pump on manual and it pumped all of it out.

 

[370Dancer]

This thread went deep into the timing/detection portion, but not so much in the pickup side of a DIY. Can someone flip their pickup over so we can see that? Is it really as simple as a sponge in a case with a 1/4" tube stuck into the sponge? How deep? All the way? Just to the top of the sponge? what kind of sponge? Kitchen scrubber without the scouring pad?
Thanks! Rainwater intrusion in Florida is a real struggle. Especially tropical storms.

 

[douglee25]

Last year I pieced together an entire system to do this and felt like I was 'taking the easy way out', so I bucked up again and sat in the bilge while under way and found the source of my leak (rub rail was not sealed correctly).

This year I had one more leak to address. I figured it was either the fwd anchor locker or from rain water on the engine hatch side. Turns out when I went to clean out the drains under the engine hatches, the bolt down engine hatch portion where water flows under towards the drain, the factory had installed some sort of butyl tape to keep the hatch from rattling. In doing so, they installed the tape literally around the drain. In effect, it made a dam which cause water to overflow the hatch trough and go into the bilge.

All that to say, I still have my kit in boxes.

 

[ttmott]

It seems at least from a Sea Ray perspective that 60 percent of water leakage in the bilge is from the deck to hull shoebox joint. 20 percent from portlights and hatches. And, the most the rest from internal leaking systems.
When I bought the boat there was water accumulating under the forward section floor - after a year of searching I found the issue in the guest head window. Sea Ray seems to do a poor job cutting holes in the hull for windows and mine was so bad there was an opening beyond the gasket. The girls that do my fiberglass work had to build that back out and gelcoat so the window gasket could seal to something.
The other big issue was the poor job caulking the shoebox joint. Underway water poured through that joint. Again, the girls pulled all of the rubrail off, cleaned out that joint and completely filled it with 3M 5200. Lastly, the engine exhaust tube that goes through the side of the hull at the waterline was laid up poorly and had some pinholes that water entered the bilge. Actually, it entered in the very aft end of the boat found a way in the hollow stringer and migrated to the forward bilge - a year to find out that leak but it's fixed now.
The boat is completely dry now.

 

[b_arrington]

The shoebox joint on my 270 AJ was similarly bad. Almost no caulk. I could see daylight pouring through inside the hull. I stripped the rub rail, removed the screws, and added 5200. Stopped my leaks and greatly improved the rigidity of the boat.

 

[mschneider]

This thread went deep into the timing/detection portion, but not so much in the pickup side of a DIY. Can someone flip their pickup over so we can see that? Is it really as simple as a sponge in a case with a 1/4" tube stuck into the sponge? How deep? All the way? Just to the top of the sponge? what kind of sponge? Kitchen scrubber without the scouring pad?
Thanks! Rainwater intrusion in Florida is a real struggle. Especially tropical storms.

I 3D printed a pickup and then happened to find that someone else had already created some designs. I just used a standard sponge and it seemed to work fine.
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5446289
I have since purchased the Bilge-B-Dry system just because I like the design and it uses smaller hoses which are easier to work with. The water pickups from the bilge-b-dry system have a flat bottom with small holes. Inside there is some sort of materials to help filter the water. It seems like the bilge-b-dry also started as a 3D printed design but is now made from a molded plastic. https://www.neptunianskyllc.com/product-page/bilge-water-stone-pick-up

 

[Stee6043]

This thread went deep into the timing/detection portion, but not so much in the pickup side of a DIY. Can someone flip their pickup over so we can see that? Is it really as simple as a sponge in a case with a 1/4" tube stuck into the sponge? How deep? All the way? Just to the top of the sponge? what kind of sponge? Kitchen scrubber without the scouring pad?
Thanks! Rainwater intrusion in Florida is a real struggle. Especially tropical storms.

This is what they look like. The pickups are filled with some kind of semi-rigid media. They are not sponges from what I can tell.

 

[bfernald0]

It seems at least from a Sea Ray perspective that 60 percent of water leakage in the bilge is from the deck to hull shoebox joint. 20 percent from portlights and hatches. And, the most the rest from internal leaking systems.
When I bought the boat there was water accumulating under the forward section floor - after a year of searching I found the issue in the guest head window. Sea Ray seems to do a poor job cutting holes in the hull for windows and mine was so bad there was an opening beyond the gasket. The girls that do my fiberglass work had to build that back out and gelcoat so the window gasket could seal to something.
The other big issue was the poor job caulking the shoebox joint. Underway water poured through that joint. Again, the girls pulled all of the rubrail off, cleaned out that joint and completely filled it with 3M 5200. Lastly, the engine exhaust tube that goes through the side of the hull at the waterline was laid up poorly and had some pinholes that water entered the bilge. Actually, it entered in the very aft end of the boat found a way in the hollow stringer and migrated to the forward bilge - a year to find out that leak but it's fixed now.
The boat is completely dry now.
View attachment 143833 View attachment 143834
View attachment 143835

I've done the portlights, but I have little doubt that the deck/hull joint is probably leaking here and there. That's a hell of a job, but maybe at the next haul out...

 

[scrumper]

I got the rest of my parts yesterday and made up a proof-of-concept system at home. In ideal conditions in my kitchen it worked fantastically well, sucking 3/4" of water out of my sink and leaving the bottom dry very quickly. (I was careful not to overfill so as to give the sponge pickup a realistic test.) I'll put it in the boat this weekend and post some photos & lessons from whatever mistakes I inevitably end up making. The wiring will be the trickiest as it has to go through the engine room bulkhead to reach the timer in the galley - I couldn't find an ignition protected timer so that has to go in the cabin. There's a run already there for the galley inverter (PO fitted it) so I'm hoping I can share that conduit.

I will say it's quite loud and not a particularly nice sound - a combination of gurgling and buzzing. In the engine room it probably won't matter much but just to be considerate I'll program the timer so it only comes on in the middle of the day.

 

[scrumper]

And it works great. Bone dry since installation. Timer went under the helm (cabin was too complicated), pump mounted next to the holding tank, and outflow tapped into one of the tee fittings for the cockpit drain. Will be interesting to see how long it lasts before it clogs up. I'll check the filter this weekend.

 

[bfernald0]

Bilge B Dry 3 port system installed and working. The pics are from the soft install to see if everything worked before I mounted the unit and ziptied everything. Will report back over the next couple months on how it does. Bluetooth app easy to connect and use. Threaded the output into one of the cockpit drains.

 

[bfernald0]

So far so good on the Bilge B Dry. I've one pick up in each of the bilges to the outside of the outside engine stringers, right forward of the exhaust tubes that go through the bottom of the hull, and one in the aft sump. All three areas had a bunch of rain water from all the rains we had this year. The suction is subtle, but it's there. Everything's now completely dry. I bought a couple of spare pick ups, but also took one apart. The insides have a small sponge topped with piece of the petroleum absorbent padding material. Very easy to clean/replace the sponge and insert a new piece of absorbent padding. The bluetooth app is also nice. Easy to use for either timed actuation, or manual.