We've discussed the scuppers and self bailing decks a bit before and while some find them very useful, I've been concerned about the ones on a Tomcat - especially for the way I use my boat. Since purchasing the Tomcat, one concern I've had is how poorly the scuppers drain. We often use a raw water wash down to remove fish blood and the speed at which the scuppers drain is, at best, annoying. I talked to Les at EQ about this during the winter maintenance and I was hoping the drainage problem could be improved upon. However, as Les pointed out the total drop from the cockpit sole to the water line is only a few inches (maybe 3-4 when lightly loaded) and hence it's hard to get the water to drain quickly with so little drop. In Les's opinion (and Les correct me if I'm misstating your words), you can't good a good self bailing deck without a 10-12" drop and you don't see that kind of drop until you get to boats in the 30+ foot category (designs with cockpit floors a foot above the water line require high sides that just don't look right on a smaller boat). So bottom line, nearly all boats in the 20-30' range that have "self bailing" decks, have something that might be more appropriately called a "somewhat self bailing" deck. The problem gets worse when you take a boat like this fishing and or load it down heavily.
For my recent tuna trip, we took 3 large coolers filled with ice and we filled the fish boxes in the floor a little more than halfway with ice. We setup a cooler (and ultimately a fish box) as a "slurry tank" - 1 part sea water to 2 parts ice - in order to rapidly cool down our catch. We probably had around 300-400 pounds of ice and water in the cockpit. We took a fairly full load of fuel (a little over 100 gallons). That's another 600 pounds. We then took on 6 salmon and 13 tuna. The salmon averaged around 8 pounds and the tuna around 20. That's another 300+ pounds in the cockpit. Now put three guys back there at nearly 200lbs/each - another 600 pounds. So we have around 1900 lbs much of which is in the cockpit (thankfully, the 600 lbs of fuel is more in the midship area). That may sound crazy to some of you but we only had 3 guys + ice and fish in the cockpit. Get rid of the ice and fish and put 2-3 other large people in the cockpit on lawn chairs, and you've got close to the same load. Or prepare for a long cruise with a similar amount of ice and some people food in coolers, plus a generator and dinghy engine in the cockpit and you have the same load. I'll also point out that for a recreational tuna boat, we were "lightly loaded" relative to the norm. The guys in the slip next to me went out in a 24' SeaSport with 6-7 coolers and way more ice. They came back with 56 albacore on board. They were definitely overloaded but that's another story.
With that load, the scuppers are at or very near the water line or are perhaps even slightly under the water line. The deck is still above the water line so no water is coming in - assuming that the path between the drain on the deck and the scupper is intact. If that's compromised, water could come in AND more importantly, it would be coming in below the deck where you can't see it. So to back up a bit, the drain on the deck on the Tomcat is connected to the scupper outlet by about 12" of semi-rigid tubing. If that comes loose or if some fitting breaks, water goes into the bilge area instead of going out. Also, the drain from the cockpit is stainless on the part you can see but (at least on my boat) hard greenish or brown plastic where it connects to the tubing (the part you can't see without opening the hatches on the transom and looking down).
On my previous trip, we noticed that the plastic part had separated from the metal part or the transom and that anything we thought was going out the scupper (our deck wash downs) was in fact going into the bilge. Of course if the scuppers were near or below water, this would also be a path from the outside into the bilge. I've since done a reasonable semi-permanent fix with liberal amounts of 4200 but I will be replacing both of these drains with something sturdier during this winter's maintenance. So I've learned that these parts can and do fail and I can see a potential for a serious problem in a heavily loaded boat. So how to reduce or eliminate that problem?
1) I need to add alarms in both sponsons that will go off when the water level exceeds a certain height or that alarm when the bilge pumps run. The concern is that the sponsons could be filling with water and you might not notice it while under power or while busy in the cockpit.
2) I need to replace the drains with a sturdier system.
I suggest all Tomcat (and perhaps 25) owners do the same. I also carry a number of rubber stoppers on the boat that allow me to plug the scupper holes and/or the drain holes.
I'm considering changing the system entirely by doing the following:
1) Glassing over the scupper hole and relocating a new through hole several inches farther up.
2) Installing reasonably large sump boxes in each sponson and pluming the cockpit drains to the sump boxes.
3) Installing macerator pumps to pump out the sump boxes.
4) Adding drains that would allow me to empty the sump boxes into the bilge once they were clean.
The above system would:
a) Get rid of a through hull that I feel is dangerously close to the water line. Even heavily loaded, I'd no longer have to worry about water coming back in the drains.
b) Provide me with a 12-18" drop from the cockpit floor the to sump boxes - things would drain more quickly.
c) The macerator pumps would be fairly tolerant to fish blood and guts that come down the drain pipe.
The only downsides I see are that
a) I would need to thoroughly flush the system with clean water at the end of the day to keep the sumps from getting too nasty.
b) I'd have to provide access to the sumps for occasional cleaning and pump replacement (I already added hatches in the floor to access the macerators attached to the fish boxes).
c) I'd have two more pumps to maintain.
d) Some might not like this fix if we decide to sell the boat (but I plan on keeping it a long time).
Thoughts from others, comments?
For my recent tuna trip, we took 3 large coolers filled with ice and we filled the fish boxes in the floor a little more than halfway with ice. We setup a cooler (and ultimately a fish box) as a "slurry tank" - 1 part sea water to 2 parts ice - in order to rapidly cool down our catch. We probably had around 300-400 pounds of ice and water in the cockpit. We took a fairly full load of fuel (a little over 100 gallons). That's another 600 pounds. We then took on 6 salmon and 13 tuna. The salmon averaged around 8 pounds and the tuna around 20. That's another 300+ pounds in the cockpit. Now put three guys back there at nearly 200lbs/each - another 600 pounds. So we have around 1900 lbs much of which is in the cockpit (thankfully, the 600 lbs of fuel is more in the midship area). That may sound crazy to some of you but we only had 3 guys + ice and fish in the cockpit. Get rid of the ice and fish and put 2-3 other large people in the cockpit on lawn chairs, and you've got close to the same load. Or prepare for a long cruise with a similar amount of ice and some people food in coolers, plus a generator and dinghy engine in the cockpit and you have the same load. I'll also point out that for a recreational tuna boat, we were "lightly loaded" relative to the norm. The guys in the slip next to me went out in a 24' SeaSport with 6-7 coolers and way more ice. They came back with 56 albacore on board. They were definitely overloaded but that's another story.
With that load, the scuppers are at or very near the water line or are perhaps even slightly under the water line. The deck is still above the water line so no water is coming in - assuming that the path between the drain on the deck and the scupper is intact. If that's compromised, water could come in AND more importantly, it would be coming in below the deck where you can't see it. So to back up a bit, the drain on the deck on the Tomcat is connected to the scupper outlet by about 12" of semi-rigid tubing. If that comes loose or if some fitting breaks, water goes into the bilge area instead of going out. Also, the drain from the cockpit is stainless on the part you can see but (at least on my boat) hard greenish or brown plastic where it connects to the tubing (the part you can't see without opening the hatches on the transom and looking down).
On my previous trip, we noticed that the plastic part had separated from the metal part or the transom and that anything we thought was going out the scupper (our deck wash downs) was in fact going into the bilge. Of course if the scuppers were near or below water, this would also be a path from the outside into the bilge. I've since done a reasonable semi-permanent fix with liberal amounts of 4200 but I will be replacing both of these drains with something sturdier during this winter's maintenance. So I've learned that these parts can and do fail and I can see a potential for a serious problem in a heavily loaded boat. So how to reduce or eliminate that problem?
1) I need to add alarms in both sponsons that will go off when the water level exceeds a certain height or that alarm when the bilge pumps run. The concern is that the sponsons could be filling with water and you might not notice it while under power or while busy in the cockpit.
2) I need to replace the drains with a sturdier system.
I suggest all Tomcat (and perhaps 25) owners do the same. I also carry a number of rubber stoppers on the boat that allow me to plug the scupper holes and/or the drain holes.
I'm considering changing the system entirely by doing the following:
1) Glassing over the scupper hole and relocating a new through hole several inches farther up.
2) Installing reasonably large sump boxes in each sponson and pluming the cockpit drains to the sump boxes.
3) Installing macerator pumps to pump out the sump boxes.
4) Adding drains that would allow me to empty the sump boxes into the bilge once they were clean.
The above system would:
a) Get rid of a through hull that I feel is dangerously close to the water line. Even heavily loaded, I'd no longer have to worry about water coming back in the drains.
b) Provide me with a 12-18" drop from the cockpit floor the to sump boxes - things would drain more quickly.
c) The macerator pumps would be fairly tolerant to fish blood and guts that come down the drain pipe.
The only downsides I see are that
a) I would need to thoroughly flush the system with clean water at the end of the day to keep the sumps from getting too nasty.
b) I'd have to provide access to the sumps for occasional cleaning and pump replacement (I already added hatches in the floor to access the macerators attached to the fish boxes).
c) I'd have two more pumps to maintain.
d) Some might not like this fix if we decide to sell the boat (but I plan on keeping it a long time).
Thoughts from others, comments?
