Hello all,

While I was waiting for the transmission to come back from rebuild, I finally got around to installing my emergency bilge pump. Here’s a quick rundown for those that might be interested:

Blue Moon had (has) a pretty standard 5 GPM bilge pump, with the pickup at the bottom of the keel cavity. It has an automatic float switch, and a separate bilge water level alarm. I have had ‘on-hand’ a Rule 17a pump sitting on my bench for more than a year, and finally got around to designing/installing a system to move more water from the bilge in a crisis situation. I built a wooden shelf for the pump…basically a big ‘L’ bracket, with the vertical piece of the ‘L’ about two feet long. Then I fiberglassed another piece of lumber to the forward bulkhead of the keel cavity, even with the top of the keel cavity. Before installing this piece, I installed (epoxied) four brass nuts (1/4-20) into the wood. The pump/L bracket assy bolts to this piece, and hangs about two feet into the keel cavity…about two feet off the bottom.

The pump is a centrifugal flow pump, so must be below the water line to work. It won’t suck water up. And the higher the level of the discharge hose, the less the pump will put out. I have about an 8 1/2 foot rise (head) from the discharge side of the pump to the forward companionway, a bit more than recommended for this pump.

I figure that the pump being two feet off the bottom of the keel is fine in a crisis. The purpose of the pump is crisis intervention, not normal dewatering, so two feet of water in the bilge is not a concern…and the normal bilge pump can take care of this.

For power (12V) I ran #12 wire to the CB panel, to a dedicated 25A breaker. The pump is supposed to draw about 16A, but in practice I saw only about 10A. The discharge hose (15 ft) I left coiled in the bilge, secured by Velcro. In a crisis, I have only to pull the hose out, uncoil, and throw out the forward or aft companionway. And flip the CB. Yes, I could have led it to a dedicated opening lower on the hull, but decided not to.

The pump I used is rated at 3900 GPM. I found that with the 8.5 ft head for the discharge, I put out (conservatively) 1500 GPM, or about 25 GPM. This is about the same as I can manage with the big manual diaphragm Whale pump, for a minute anyways.

Anyway, thought others might be interested in this project. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, and hopefully will never have to use it in a real scenario!

David Tye
Blue Moon, #189