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Wed, February 05 2025, 04:43 [ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, [5], 6, 7, 8, 9 ]

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Date Posted: - Thursday - 11/ 5/09 - 2:30pm
Author: Jared Kibele
Subject: The dreaded wettening
In reply to: Randall, Murre, M31 's message, "Caution--wet?" on - Wednesday - 11/ 4/09 - 3:58pm

I have considered the water on the batteries problem. I have two completely separate electric bilge pumps and one manual. One electric pump runs directly off the house bank. The other has it's float switch a little higher in the bilge, is hooked up to an audible alarm, and runs off of the starting bank. The idea is that as long as the house bank pump is working and able to keep up with the water coming in, the second one won't turn on. If it does turn on, I'll know about it, freak out, start screaming, get Christine to run the manual pump, and then set about figuring out what's going on.

I was also thinking that the battery terminals would end up being pretty close to the cabin sole. Given this and my disaster preparedness plan outlined above, I was thinking that the pros might outweigh the cons. The main pros for me would be: pretty much ideal place to put all that weight (about 120 lbs.), easy access to the batteries for maintenance, and fairly short cable runs. When the fresh water tank is full, Architeuthis tends to list to starboard a little so I'm reluctant to put all the batteries under the pilot berth.

Anyway, thanks for the input. I'll probably continue to think about it for another week or two before I do anything.

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Replies:

[> [> [> Whale sinks sailboat -- Bruce, - Thursday - 11/ 5/09 - 3:03pm

HI Jared,
Did you hear about the sinking which just occured at the Baha Ha Ha? I understand your reasons for putting the batteries in the bilge, but this could happen, render the automatic bilge pumps useless, and you would have concerns other than operating the hand bilge pump. This boat actually sank due to an encounter with a pod of whales.
http://www.10news.com/news/21457298/detail.html
Again, I want to urge you to not put the batteries in the bilge. On Gitana Vela, I have two Caterpillar D6 batteries below the pilot berth, and put lead ingots below the opposite settee to counter the resulting list. The extra weight doesn't bother me since I do not race Gitana Vela (I only race on other people's boats)


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[> [> [> [> Pesky whales -- Jared Kibele, - Thursday - 11/ 5/09 - 5:35pm

Well, it would certainly suck to have a whale bust off your rudder and rip the rudder post tube out of the back of the boat. However, this wouldn't actually render the automatic pumps useless by itself. Pump #1 would start pumping immediately and pump #2 would, assuming that pump #1 wasn't keeping up with the water intake, start soon after and the alarm would start screeching. As mentioned before, I would then start freaking out and squealing like a little girl.

If, at that point, the water got up to a couple of inches below the cabin sole, then the house batteries would die and pump #1 would stop working. Pump #2, and presumably the manual pump, would both still be functional and, if I had any wits about me, I'd have the engine started and everything switched over to the starting bank (which is now and will continue to be under the pilot berth).

As an aside: I'm also thinking about installing a Y valve on the cooling water intake for the engine with a hose running down into the bilge so that, in an emergency, I can switch it so that the engine cooling system can function as an extra bilge pump.

Anyway, I'm not 100% dead-set on putting them in the bilge. I'll keep thinking about it. I'm just not convinced that it's horribly unsafe to have them down there.


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[> [> [> [> [> Fail Safe. -- Bruce, - Thursday - 11/ 5/09 - 6:36pm

lol. All good ideas, and sound logic. But what happens if you get pooped and take on a huge wave? I just think the "fail safe" belt and suspenders approach is always the better route to take. Eliminating that one possible dreadful scenario couldn't hurt, could it?


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