Toodle-oo! is equipped with a large DC bilge pump and two manual pumps. It 's a good start perhaps.

We also have aboard a pretty large capacity watermaker that runs on 110V (possibly 220V). The pumps are large! I 'm thinking it might be possible to utilize the low pressure pump in the event of a flooding - with a couple of Y valves, I could redirect water to suck from the bilge and expel through one of the existing bilge pump hoses...

I 'd rather have a second use for a pump that 's already aboard than add a dedicated pump that I hope I never have to use.

What do you think?

Bill Balme

Hello Dick,

Good thoughts. My bilge is very shallow, so I cannot install the pump permanently, it just wouldn 't fit. So this is indeed a 2nd best option. I do however have the pump including hose fopr grabs ready dor use.
Same goes for the bigger Rule pumps, they do not fit under the floor...
I guess it would be possible to find another 12V high capacity pump that would fit, with a hose in the bilge and the pump in another place.

Best regards,

Erik Snel, sy Dutch Rose - Lemmer, NL

Dear snelem
Thanks for your thoughts and contributions. I am sorry you experienced water over the floorboards and glad it worked out for you. With the self-contained water detectors available nowadays there should be no reason to have water detection accomplished by a wet foot.
I think you are wise to start your engine to charge your batteries at the initial sign of flooding. The voltage drop can be impressive under bilge pump load and the volume of water moved out of the boat will decrease markedly with voltage drop.
I did not address in much detail de-watering a boat as it can be a complicated, boat dependent topic worthy of an article (book?) on its own. I have thought deeply about this on our 40 foot sailboat and have followed others in their explorations and believe there to be no definitive method that can be generally applied: all are compromises, some significant. There is no vessel I know of which emerges from the factory floor which is even close to being prepared to deal with a flooding situation.
I have followed the efforts of a number of skippers who have attempted to make an AC sump/trash submersible pump work. Some misgivings I have about the method you describe for your boat include the time necessary to get your submersible pump out of storage, get the discharge hose out where it goes overboard and tie it down or it will flail about, plug the unit in and start the inverter (the DC to AC converter). That alone could take a bit of time and time is of the essence in the event of flooding. Every second of a significant leak makes the leak more difficult to find and finding the leak is the first priority as no pumps (on our recreational vessels) will keep up with a significant leak.
My other hesitation revolves around the need for you to be close at hand to 220 AC in a chaotic situation where you will be wet and sticking body parts in wet places to find the leak. I would urge you, at minimum, to make an AC pump a permanent install, hose permanently installed overboard and the electrical inspected by a marine electrician.
Better, in my mind, to stick with DC pumps, again permanently installed. Rule makes some big pumps that move a lot of water. If room, install 2. The idea being that you are buying time to find the leak. More volume is certainly better, but having something you just flick a switch to start the pump(s) and then quickly begininspecting for the leak seems to maximize the chances of finding of the leak.

My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy, Harwich, England

I have also experienced flooding above the floor boards, on my first yacht. Motor sailing between shoals, single handed. Luckily I was able to find the leak almost right away, it turned out the engine water inlet hose was torn. So I learned the lesson the hard way and now have a plan as well, although not as extensive as yours.

I have one addition to your plan: I find my electric bilge pumps do not have the kind of capacity needed for a bad flooding situation. I therefore have a normal household submersible pump with much more capacity, running on 230v. So, after switching on the bilge pumps, my plan includes starting the engine, switching on the DC-AC converter and shoving the submersible pump where it does most good. This almost triples my pump capacity! It might be a good idea to switch on the engine anyway: bilge pumps use quite some amps, so keeping the batteries full is important. Also, starting the engine once the some parts are flooded may be difficult, whereas keeping a a diesel engine running in wet condition is no problem at all.

Dear Scott,
Glad it was such a happy ending although I suspect there was some yucky clean up and that some items below the floorboards were not happy.
This occurrence is a good argument for, at least once a season, putting your propulsion engine through its paces. For me, I run it WOT (wide open throttle) under load for 5 minutes (Your diesel should be fine with this, but, if uncomfortable, go at 80% throttle). Also do some aggressive stops and starts such as might occur in an emergency drill in a marina where things go pear shaped. I also have a hose clamp just outside the "collar" of my Shaft Seal so it could only slip minutely if the worst happens. A sacrificial zinc so placed would do the same job.
My best, Dick

Dick, Last spring, we were heading offshore from Wightsville Beach, NC to Beaufort, NC, when a half hour after we left, I reved the engine hard to make Beaufort before dark. fifteen minutes later I noticed water over the floor boards. I quickly jumped below and tasted the water. It was salty so we were taking on water. Next I checked the shaft seal and saw we were taking on water through it. I immediately cut the engine back and the inflow stopped. When we got back to Wrightsville Beach I had a mechanic come and check it for me. He tightened that shaft seal and said that often the bellows on the Last Drop Shaft loose flexibility and when you push the engine hard the prop pushes the shaft forward and when you have a V-Dive, as we do, the shaft may actually move slightly forward as it pushes the V-Drive up just enough to allow water to come in. Lesson learned, always check your shaft seal and tighten it periodically and or replace it(as we just did)

Hi Neil,
Excellent suggestions. I have never come across hinged floorboards, but they make a lot of sense and could make for a good winter project. Many boats, I believe, would lend themselves to hinges and a latch of some sort rather than pins and a locking device.
When floorboards start to float, moving about in most boats would be very likely to lead to a broken leg or worse. If floorboards are floating, it is probably time to focus efforts on abandoning ship, or at least the preparations for doing so, as finding a leak in deep water would be quite unlikely. When prepared to abandon ship, continue looking for the leak and "step up" to the liferaft.
With alarms one should never find one 's floorboards floating. To me, bilge alarms should be required on every vessel when built: well installed by the manufacturer. They are a very easy installation, however, something within every boat owner 's capacity.
Thanks for your thoughts, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy

Dick 's suggestions are great. One point to add
If the water gets above the cabin sole, and the hatches are not fixed down, they float away and it becomes VERY difficult to move around the cabins. I met the skipper of a 70 foot. Oat he lost because of that.
Hatches must be easily opened. As Dick says, having them screwed down is a bad idea.
Our hatches are all hinged, and when closed they fasten automatically, just as all doors do when slammed shut.
I feel this is an essential safety feature of boat design.
We made our hatches large, which is all the safer. Over 90% of Milvina 's cabin sole consists of hinged hatches.
It would be a lot of work to change many boats to this condition, but it is not too hard to add hinges and catches to most hatches in cabin sole

Useful account Dick - thanks. Shall be installing a float switch and alarm in the near future.

Bill Balme

Daria and everyone,
Your email and a personal one from another OCC member who found their floorboards awash yesterday underline for me the importance of the alarms I mention in the article. Both of you had shaft leaks from shaft seal and glands. That is a relatively easy leak to find in many vessels. When floorboards get wet, many vessels thru hulls would be underwater making a leak in those areas much more difficult to locate. Early warning alarms, low in the bilge, give often crucial extra minutes to find the leak, not to mention the items/equipment etc. that get salt water wet when the floorboards start to float.
Dick