Bilge Ideas.

C

capt. meares

New member
Does anyone have any crafty ideas or tricks to get rid of the water that is constantly collecting on the floor against the cabin directly below the door? My 22 cruiser never has a drop of water collecting in the actual bilge in the back by the drain plug, but always on the floor below the door. I have seen several cruisers with a bilge pump in this spot with a box built around them, but I don't know if this would really keep the area completely dry.

One idea I am brainstorming, (maybe I am not the first to think of this), Take out the drain plug below the door, and plum a connected hose to this hole from the inside, and connect this line to a wash down pump mounted inside the cabinet, that would send the water outside a thru-hull below the cooking stove. The water would naturally collect inside this hose, and be on its way out with the flip of a switch.

I know its easy to just wipe it up with a sponge or towel, but I cant get to it with my hard plastic garage floor matting.

Any ideas or thoughts?
 
Depends on how much water you are talking about. I have one of these that I have used for years on a variety of siphon and bilge pump situations.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/1908582238 ... ps&lpid=82

If your garage mat is thick enough, and the bronze pickup is small enough, it might be flush with the mat and could be hooked to a small bilge pump, even a hand pump. The fittings have little legs on the bottom that can be filed off so long as you don't go so far as to create a suction.

I'm amazed at how pricey these are now, but they are cast bronze. Plastic would probably work fine in your situation if you could find the right part. In fact, you may not need a fitting at all. Plastic aquarium tubing run through a rabbit cut in the underside of your mat might work, with the mat keeping it in place and hiding it.

Mark
 
This is a somewhat inherent-to-the-hull-design problem that C-Dory has handled in various ways over the years. Essentially, when the boat is balanced fore-and-aft, the low point is by the cabin door. Many 22's are now stern heavy, which somewhat "solves" the problem, but it sounds like you are not. I don't know that there is a perfect solution, but here are some of the things C-Dory has done:

1) Looks like early 22 cruisers had "nothing" (yours?)

2) An exterior box just aft of the galley window (in the cockpit) that housed a bilge pump and had a strum box (bilge pickup) placed toward the centerline of the box.

3) (My generation) An interior sump (with core removed to make it as deep as possible) just ahead of where the one in #2 was located. The actual "box" is under the galley against the after cabin bulkhead; then there is a "slit" to allow water from the cockpit to flow into the box. The bilge pump and float switch are located in the box. This is not that great a setup because of course the centerline of the boat is lower, and this is sort of "uphill" to the starboard side.

4) (mid-to-later 2000's) An interior sump on the centerline of the boat, inside the main cabin, right against the aft cabin bulkhead (so essentially you step over it when you come in the cabin door). Same general principle as the one in #3, but centered on the boat. The little "step box" contains the pump and float, and also conceals the water tank plumbing heading across to the galley.

5) In the later 2000's they just made a "permanent" flat cockpit sole/half liner that is raised up to the level that the older removable/optional floorboards were at. This is caulked (at least I think they used caulk based on some posts) to the cabin bulkhead. Thus, presuming the caulk is intact, no water can get to the 'midships low spot, but is forced to drain aft into the transom sump area (the "permanent" sole must be sloped aft).

My guess would be that - short of going to #5 - solution #4 would work the best, presuming you don't mind the little box there in the cabin. I think in a lot of cases, folks have camperbacks and/or slant back covers so water in the cockpit is less of an issue.
 
The later boats--maybe 2002 on have the bilge pump, inside the cabin. There is a hole right at the bottom of the bulkhead--actually a slot in my boat. There is a pump, in a sump (no core in this area), and a box, to keep the water from going into the cabin. The bilge pump is just below the hull stripe.

The natural place for water to accumulate is forward, near the bulkhead, when the boat is in the water. When on a plane the water goes aft. So we have pumps in both places.
 
Sunbeam, FYI

My 2012 22 with the permanent cockpit sole, the low part (with full fuel, two batteries and a Honda 90 at the stern and minimal weight in the bow) is still at the cabin wall. I get about 3/8 to 1/2 inch of water after a rain storm at the cabin wall. The water puddle up against the cabin wall tapers aft a couple feet.
 
Bob,

There is only one bilge pump on my 22 at the stern. The cabin wall (bulkhead) is glassed to the bilge with about a 3 to 4 inch rise to the cabin door.
 
My 1993 has a boxed bilge pump on a float switch in the cockpit against the starboard bulkhead wall. It's a good pump as a backup but doesn't really keep the boat clear of water at this spot. I even have a kicker motor that pulls the water to the bilge pump (no cockpit sole, so slightly above the low centerline), There is also was a box over the pump to protect it, that was (OF COURSE!!) screwed into the cockpit floor (aka the HULL) and has resulted in most of the balsa here being soaked. The result for me is little water removal (except in backup situations where the main pump failed) and a lot of bad core. No need for extra screw holes in the hull.

If my tanks are full the water drains nicely to the stern sump.
 
Rcbeach":2asf5734 said:
Sunbeam, FYI

My 2012 22 with the permanent cockpit sole, the low part (with full fuel, two batteries and a Honda 90 at the stern and minimal weight in the bow) is still at the cabin wall. I get about 3/8 to 1/2 inch of water after a rain storm at the cabin wall. The water puddle up against the cabin wall tapers aft a couple feet.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the note. I've been aboard a couple of 22's with the permanent sole, but never when there was any water to contend with. Sounds like it's not a perfect solution (although from your subsequent post, it sounds like they are now glassing - instead of caulking - the sole to the cabin bulkhead. That sounds like an improvement.

As an aside, although I have no specific plans to buy a new 22, sometimes I sure wish they'd "brag" about any/various build improvements they are making in recent years. I don't mean stripe colors, but things like better rubrail attachment, any core protection, the glassed joint you have vs. the caulked one, etc. I imagine I'm not the only one who would be interested.

Anyway, I guess there is always going to be the potential for a nuisance water challenge when you have a dory shaped hull (rocker/low point amidships) with no (real) bilge, and an overall size not large enough to really be self-draining. But they are such great boats :thup
 
Rcbeach, yes,the very newest boats --and not sure of the year, have the cockpit sole raised, and yet water gets under this floor. This is a known problem. My boat has the removable (option) floor, and acts exactly as a no floor boat as far as bilge drainage.

It sounds as if the newer boats should have the second bilge pump in the sole on the inside of the cabin.

One hopes that the aft bulkhead was glassed to the inner hull before the cockpit sole was put in place and glassed in to avoid the aft bulkhead from having water wicking up into the aft bulkhead. Not a problem if there is no water trapped under the cockpit floor.
 
Thanks all for the responses, and potential ideas to battle this problem. To clarify a few of the questions, my 22 cruiser is a 1988. It all depends on what I am doing to explain how much water we are talking about. Crabbing will bring quite a bit of water rather quickly, and any time I am out in the rain it doesn't take long to get an inch or so in this location. Even after cleaning it and parking it in the shelter and thinking I have it all dry, there always seems to be water gathering in this same place and I don't like it. I find it very pleasing however, that this is the only thing I can find that I don't like about this boat. Thanks again.
 
My 2007 CD-22 only has the one bilge pump in the sump area at the transom between the two fuel tanks. I did add another pump to this area just as a backup. I will occasionally get water standing in the cockpit against the rear cabin bulkhead when the boat is lower in the bow. I too have thought about putting another pump just behind and beneath the cabin door, but would need to dig into the raised cockpit floor to allow for a sump area. Colby
 
For tiny amounts, like what I have left in the bilge (both just inside the cabin in the box described earlier, and the aft sump) I use a turkey baster with a rubber tip, gets it right sown to the last drop.

Probably not what you want to do when crabbing, but it woks good when I am finishing cleaning the boat.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

JC_Lately_SleepyC_Flat_Blue_070.thumb.jpg
 
hardee":1usoedh0 said:
For tiny amounts... I use a turkey baster with a rubber tip, gets it right sown to the last drop.

Probably not what you want to do when crabbing, but it woks good when I am finishing cleaning the boat.
Click to expand...

I don't really fish, so don't know all the ins and outs, but your post did give me a laugh this morning as I instantly pictured rugged C-Doryers out for a day of fishing. Grey skies with a bit of wind and some whitecaps...hauling in stacks of crab pots... oilskins on, but having a great day because the catch is going great guns. Yeah! Oh, and then to complete the picture: one of them is kneeling down in the corner, delicately placing a turkey baster to get the last drops of water away from the bulkhead :mrgreen:
 
capt. meares,
I would probably install a removable grating on the floor, and glass the lower part of the aft cabin bulkhead to the level of the door sill. (I don't remember how far up the galss came on the plywood/bulkhead. Then I would put a hole/ slot, and glass/epoxy the underside of the plywood--and be sure it was sealed the width of the cabin sole. Then build a box, after taking out the floor core, just inside of the cabin door--and put a bilge pump there, to discharge out the side. You can do the same thing inside the cockpit--but I think that the step inside is neater, and a bit safer.

It is very likely the removable floors which were built in the 2005 to 2007 era would fit your boat, if you could find someone who didn't want his...
 
It may be worth asking where the water comes from. I bought my 2007 cruiser after it had been sitting outdoors at least 2 years, and water kept appearing at that cockpit-door location (no bilge pump located there on mine). Had to do lots of investigating. Turned out rainwater had been dripping into the boat for a long time through leaks around various bolts, and there was lots of water between the cabin sole and the hull. In that location it can't get out to the little bilge at the stern where the bilge pump is located.
I finally cut a round 6 inch access port into the floor of the cabin under the porta potti and removed some foam. Accumulated water filled the space. You can see this on the photos posted under boat name "Pangur Ban". I was able to drain and dry it through the access port and after a while the water stopped appearing at the cockpit door.
I removed and re-bedded the bow rail, two portholes added by a previous owner, and the anchor windlass. All had been leaking. The water had flowed down and gotten through the plugs up front where the manufacturer had injected flotation foam between the floor and hull. Next I will re-bed the cleats in the middle of the boat. And I've kept it under cover when not in use. So far, the water by the cabin door hasn't come back.
 
I'm in the midst of repairing old screw penetrations and the worst of the worst are the unnecessary screws holding the bilge box to the cockpit/hull. Because of my kicker way over starboard, the boat lists this way and water sits there, but once the float switch is down and the pump off there is still plenty of water to be had!

So now that my balsa core is largely removed from the screws closest to the door (the screw holding down the float switch was also baaaaad, but the bilge screws were fine) and it seems to have a fairly contiguous amount of rot all the way through. between these two screws. There is good wood, then another bit of rot way by the corner, where the cored hull meets the sides in the corner.

So, I'm thinking that I should cut out a rectangle of top skin off that is just smaller than the flanges of the bilge box, remove all of the core here, good and bad, and pour in a new core with a sump just behind the cabin bulkhead.

I was thinking that a real sump, that kept a little water in it would also be an ideal place to try a shoot through hull transducer. Might work!!!
 
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