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how much water enters the splashwell in calm seas with the plugs out? before i moved the engine onto the jackplate, I would leave the plugs out when moored so the water would drain. The one time i didn't i had a panicked harbor master calling me, telling me my boat was sinking and they were looking for a pump. I told them to stop looking and i would drive over and fix it, which i did by pulling the plugs. Once the engine was on a jackplate, so the splashwell drains were below the waterline, the bilge pumps when in and the battery went on a solar trickle charger. Never had a dead battery or a swamped boat. I would often leave the sump drain plug out and only use the bilge pumps on the splashwell
That's a good point Phil, I think my options are limited. It's not a full splashwell, so I'd considered building a "platform" over the splashwell and the width of the interior with an inner "lip" on it so that any water that came in, would just flow back out again when the boat went up the next swell. Might be optimistic thinking though... Any idea approximately what the cables would weigh if I moved the batteries up?
I've never just pulled the splashwell plug Kamie, as I leave the drain between the splashwell and fishwell (where the bilge pump is located) open so they both fill. But when I do that, the water fills the fishwell to just below the floor level, which I understand is about 4" higher than on a less waterlogged hull. I do like the idea of the solar trickle charger too, thanks for that.
I ran two 2 gauge cables, 16 and 17 feet respectively and would guess they weighed 10 lbs.
On thinking about the effort, it may be less work to fab a "splash door" with two hinged openings then to move the console, lift the deck and reinstall the battery switch and cut the console floor.
My project album illustrates it is not a quick task.
If I were to build a spash door, I would use marine ply and a complementary color of exterior paint. This would save you from the weight of starboard and eliminate the need to gelcoat or epoxy paint.
Just thoughts to consider.
It would be great to see you make a personal page showing the rear transom area.
Edited by Phil T on 08/01/10 - 3:50 PM
1992 Outrage 17 I
2019 E-TEC 90, Viper 17 2+
2018 Load Rite Elite 18280096VT
What capacity is your bilge pump? If the pump is too small, it'll never catch up with persistent conditions once water starts to enter the boat and make it sit even lower. Too small a pump running constantly will run your battery down quicker than a larger capacity pump that at least has a change to pump water faster than the boat takes it on.
If your transom sits low, I wouldn't hesitate to reposition the batteries forward to the CC. I moved both of my batteries last year to the CC and my only regret is I didn't do it years ago.
I have a chart for the Berkshire marine cable I used...
With 35' of added 1 AWG cable, the extra approx 11 lbs would seem relatively inconsequential especially given the benefit of moving maybe 100 lbs of batteries from the transom to the CC. Maybe splash guards for the transom might help as well. Are you moored so the bow is always allowed to point into the wind?
If you can leave the plugs out and it's not above floor level, that's what I would do. The boats are designed to self bail, even those that are on the heavy side.
Thanks for the great input. 10-15 lbs of wire weight is certainly worth adding to move the batt's forward, not sure why I thought it would be significantly more? It's the super console Phil, so there's a little more room to work with than what you had, and I think I could do it all without having to unbolt.
Pump is a 500 GPH unit Johnny, and the mooring is free to swing 360 degrees. I see your point about it being able to keep up, but wonder if 12+ hours of wave action wouldn't do the battery in regardless?
The problem with leaving the plug out is that the bow rises really high on the swells due to the add'l water weight in the back, and that seems to compound the problem. This time the water was up to just about the front of the console, and most likely made it into the tank area too I'm guessing. It does make sense though and seems like it would be a great feature to have, foolproof in a sense. Maybe with the batt's and oil tank fwd, the water will be at a lower level with the plugs out.
Derwd24 wrote:Pump is a 500 GPH unit Johnny, and the mooring is free to swing 360 degrees. I see your point about it being able to keep up, but wonder if 12+ hours of wave action wouldn't do the battery in regardless?
I understand what your saying. Sounds like the best plan of attack is to try and prevent so much water from getting in at all.
A 500 GPH pump makes a good utility pump to remove water from wash down and such but its hardly adequate to remove unexpected water. I've got an 1100 GPH pump in my 17' Outrage and taking a couple of consecutive waves over the transom is enough to keep my 1100 GPH pump running a couple of minutes. I'd have an even larger capacity pump if I could fit one. Being able to dewater fast is a good thing IMO especially when something unexpected happens. Years ago I had my Outrage completely swamped when a large rolling wake from a tug caught us off guard while anchored up fishing a bridge at night. The boat was very unstable full of water with two of us aboard and anchored up in a current. It was a tense 10 minutes or so until the smaller 500 GPH pump I had at the time finally got enough water out that the boat was stable. I installed the 1100 GPH pump after that incident and it makes a significant difference. My old 500 GPH pump used about 2 amps while running. My 1100 GPH pump draws just a bit over 3 amps. Not a lot more power consumption but significantly more effective capacity.
Makes complete sense. I'd considered adding another pump in the fishwell, but about 3" higher than the first, so that if the water level got to that depth, both would be running to dewater faster. But I reconsidered due to battery life (I could also run one off each batt, but if both wore down, I'd be dead in the water). What brand of 1100 do you run that takes a bit over 3 amps?
Also wanted to second that the Outrage is very unstable when swamped, especially in any swell action.
Edited by Derwd24 on 08/01/10 - 10:07 PM
Dave - 1983 Outrage 22
I have a computerized automatic Rule 1100 and I think its rated at 3.3 amps. No float switch to jam and its compact.
I also like the idea of the solar to try and keep the bilge battery topped off. If you go that route, I suggest the largest capacity panel you can accommodate. If we go with a pump that draws say 2-3 amps, we're talking about 24-36 watts of power consumption. Those little inexpensive 5 watt and even 15 watt solar battery chargers will be all but about useless in your situation IMO. They work okay for maintaining a charge on an unused battery but I don't think they'll restore one that has had a load.
Solar panels are typically rated at their absolute highest output voltage under ideal conditions so their ratings with real-world use can be very misleading. It may not be practical to completely recover all the power consumption from the bilge pump running constantly without a ridiculously large panel but anything would help maybe hold the battery over until the conditions improved and the pump cycled less. Then a smaller panel could bring the battery back up without as much a load on it.
