Shoeless Musings: Bilge Pump Install

As much as i want winter to continue the birds, flowers, and running water outside my window have me doing my season change ritual. A summers worth of camping and boating gear comes out gets dusted off, fixed up and put into service.

For those new to the blog Let me introduce Florence. Every step of her construction is on this blog, if your interested the build starts here. One thing that i have always ment to do is install a bailing system. There are many examples of self bailing dorys but it requires a permanent floor installed in the rowers compartment. For me it was easier to put in a electric bilge system.

This is basically the same system that i have been putting into whitewater canoes for some time. It starts off with the battery box. I am using a plastic ammo can but anything that will keep the battery clean and dry will do just fine. Additionally if it is going to be installed someplace that is difficult to get a charger to this is where you should put a pigtail.

Here is a photo of the deck layout the passenger foot well fills up extremely fast in heavy conditions. To solve this water needs to drain from that compartment into tho rowers compartment.

Here you can see the drain hose going from compartment to compartment.

Under the rowing compartment floor is the pump itself. You can see the outlet from the passenger compartment, limber holes, floor tie downs, and plumbing for the whole system.

The plumbing goes through the rowers compartment (sealed of course) and to the outlet under the starboard oar lock. Note the backer block to add strength to the outlet.

I haven't really decided where i want to battery box to live so for now its installed under the rowers seat.

The placement of on/off switch is important, it needs to be somewhere that is safe from the normal movement on the boat. I decided to put it close to the gunwale and oarlock on the starboard side.