CONTINUOUSWAVE

Hey folks. [On my 1984 OUTRAGE 22 boat] the locker under the center console and the rear live well always fill with water after rains and heavy splash. I've been bailing them by hand like fool.

How have you all solved this problem [of water on deck collecting in the well below the center console and the stern live well of an OUTRAGE 22]?

I keep my boat in the water. If I must have three sump pumps on a 22-foot boat I'll do it, but I was wondering if smarter folk than have done something different. For example, has anyone foamed in the rear live well? It's useless to me.

I have the same Boston Whaler OUTRAGE 22 boat. I have a Rule pump in the rear live well. I wouldn't foam it in. It's great for storage like a spare anchor and lines. I also have a pump in the transom well due to the low and wide transom allowing wash in. I keep the plug in this one due to the amount of gear I carry in the stern for camping. You may not have this problem.

This year I plan to add a pump in the rigging tunnel.

I'm unsure about under console locker. Unless it's the storage area in the console. I've never had water there and in fact consider it my dry storage.

Peter

On my 22-foot Boston Whaler boat hull I installed a small centrifugal pump in the stern live well and a float switch that automatically operates the pump. My stern live well is filled with gear, but I expect anything that I place there to get wet. The exhaust of the pump comes up on the Starboard side and goes across the rigging tunnel. My boat is a Whaler Drive boat, so the exhaust then caries aft to the transom and empties into the large diameter drain that goes through the transom. On a boat without a Whaler Drive the pump could exhaust into the cockpit deck sump, or could be carried overboard at the transom.

My boat is a REVENGE model, so I do not have a problem with water collecting in the large forward locker in the deck; it is under the cabin.

These small centrifugal pumps cannot lift water very high in their exhaust, so you must make the pump exhaust path have very low lift.

jimh wrote:These small centrifugal pumps cannot lift water very high in their exhaust, so you must make the pump exhaust path have very low lift.

A small centrifugal pump requires an upward/steep exhaust path so it doesn't get air locked. Also even a small pump 500 gph can push water 15 feet up or more, although certainly with reduced gph performance.

To expect a small centrifugal pump to lift any significant volume of water via its exhaust to a height of 15-feet is totally unreasonable. With a small centrifugal pump like a little RULE pump, you are lucky if the pump can lift water in its exhaust hose to a height of 3-feet.

The distance the water must rise in the output of the pump is known as head. Rule provides data about the rate of flow of water from their pumps with various distance of head. Here is the data for a typical small pump, the RULE model 24. The pump is described in the literature as having a pumping capacity of 360-gallons-per-hour, or 6-gallons-per-minute. But that rating is for a head of zero, that is, no water is lifted any distance. The pump is derated in capacity as head increases, as follows, per the RULE literature:

FEET  GPH at 13.6-Volts
0     360
3.3   265
6.7   190

Those ratings are with a supply voltage of 13.6-Volts, which is unlikely to be possible to obtain from a battery unless the battery is simultaneously being charged by some sort of battery charger. A battery that is not under charge and has been subjected to discharge will have much lower voltage. RULE provides ratings for the pump at 12.0-Volts, a typical voltage for a battery in a state of partial discharge and with some voltage drop in the wiring to the pump. The pump rating are then:

FEET  GPH at 12.0-Volts
0     330
3.3   240
6.7   150

RULE does not provide ratings for greater distances of head, and that's because the pump probably cannot deliver much output with any greater distance. We see that with a pump being presented as a 360-GPH pump, in a real-world situation with a modest head of 3.3-feet and typical battery voltage after some discharge, will only deliver 240-GPH, or about two-thirds of the initial rating.

Also, those ratings are most likely for smooth hose with a length not any longer than the head dimension. If you have the typical corrugated flexible hose and the hose runs horizontally some distance as well as vertically, you can expect the output to reduce further.

I have a RULE 500 pump in the stern live well of my Boston Whaler boat. The head on the pump is the absolute least amount of lift possible, just to the level of the cockpit deck then immediately overboard. The hose is a smooth hose, not a corrugated flex hose. I tested the pump by letting the live well fill with water by pulling the drain plug. Then I installed the drain plug, and turned on the RULE 500. It took the pump about 8 to 10 minutes to evacuate the water from the live well.

Cf.: http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/kingpump ... lletin.pdf

Here is a graph (from RULE) showing the derating curve with increasing HEAD. Notice how ALL the centrifugal pumps, without regard to their rated GPH for 0-feet of lift, eventually degrade to almost no output when the HEAD increases to about 12-feet.