Bilge Theory - Opinions wanted!

Nancy · Post by **Nancy** » Fri Jan 04, 2013 10:19 pm

D, Dave didn't post photos of the bilge all the way forward. I'd love to see a shot of of it in the V-berth where floor hatch abuts the step. I studied that area a lot in our (Michael's) boat, and I think the false bilge is open into the forward-most section of the bilge, i.e. under the V-berth step and below the bilge pump.

If that's true, it has at least had soapy water flowing through it once or twice a year even if there was no access to scrub its length.

comodave · Post by **comodave** » Fri Jan 04, 2013 10:42 pm

My boat has been in the Great Lakes for it's whole life, so fresh water smells too. The reason that I decided to remove the roving covering the hollow keel was that I knew that opening it up would solve the smell problem. I do have to put a in diaphragm pump to get the last of the bilge water out, but I was really worried that if I tried other solutions like filling the keel with foam and it did not get rid of the smell, then I just made the problem worse. I would then have to remove the roving and whatever I filled the keel with also. One of my concerns was that I did not know for sure how deep the keel would be. As it turned out, it was not very deep. As to putting holes in front and rear, that was what I did at first and tried flushing it with cleaner. It helped, but not good enough. I am trying to remember what the configuration was under the step by the vee berth. I believe that the hollow part disappeared at the rear of the step. It was really shallow at that point. One of the photos shows where the hollow part goes away.

Commissionpoint · Post by **Commissionpoint** » Fri Jan 04, 2013 10:58 pm

I will investigate in the forward compartment a little in the area Nancy mentioned. Maybe I can get some Slimy Grimy or similar to run through there if I know there is a place for it to run out. Once out the of the cavity any crud will go out the forward garboard.

If I remove the cap its getting filled. I don't know if I would do a cold batch slow cure poly resin or a urethane dry rubber or what, but I feel its critical the finished project is a replacement surface of the same dimensions as the cap. Its whats made the whole bilge forward arrangement work all these years, and with all the other crap I have going on all of the time re-engineering the bilge pump situation as to create at the very least an equal system is not high on my list of things to do. I actually like that it drains forward at rest. The area around the transom is bone dry all of the time.

I was thinking about going over to the marina tomorrow with my snowshoes and crossing the parking lot with them to go poke around at it a bit while I have the soles open and its on the hard. Its supposed to be about 35 out. Then I thought if I am putting my snowshoes on I shoud go hike instead, so I changed plans and am going to go hike the Seward Range. That will give me about 18 miles and 5600 feet of total elevation to think the whole thing over some more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seward_Mountain_(New_York)
(in case anybody was wondering where I was talking about)

RWS · Post by **RWS** » Sat Jan 05, 2013 8:19 am

Commissionpoint wrote:
<snip>

I was thinking about going over to the marina tomorrow with my snowshoes and crossing the parking lot with them to go poke around at it a bit while I have the soles open and its on the hard. Its supposed to be about 35 out. Then I thought if I am putting my snowshoes on I shoud go hike instead, so I changed plans and am going to go hike the Seward Range. That will give me about 18 miles and 5600 feet of total elevation to think the whole thing over some more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seward_Mountain_(New_York)
(in case anybody was wondering where I was talking about)

=======================================
Take a hike ...........

now THAT's funny !

Seriously, an 18 mile hike in the snow?

AND contempleting the bilge water while at it?

Why not come down to Florida and hang out with me, Ready123 and Guglielmo.

We'll do some fishing and hanging out on the water.

Perhaps we could cure you of that 18 mile hiking in the snow problem.

We'll even chat with you about your bilge water, you can tell us all about it, get it all off your mind and save yourself from the frostbite.

RWS

Allen Sr · Post by **Allen Sr** » Sat Jan 05, 2013 8:23 am

RWS wrote:
Commissionpoint wrote:
<snip>

I was thinking about going over to the marina tomorrow with my snowshoes and crossing the parking lot with them to go poke around at it a bit while I have the soles open and its on the hard. Its supposed to be about 35 out. Then I thought if I am putting my snowshoes on I shoud go hike instead, so I changed plans and am going to go hike the Seward Range. That will give me about 18 miles and 5600 feet of total elevation to think the whole thing over some more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seward_Mountain_(New_York)
(in case anybody was wondering where I was talking about)
=======================================
Take a hike ...........

now THAT's funny !

Seriously, an 18 mile hike in the snow?

AND contempleting the bilge water while at it?

Why not come down to Florida and hang out with me, Ready123 and Guglielmo.

We'll do some fishing and hanging out on the water.

Perhaps we could cure you of that 18 mile hiking in the snow problem.

We'll even chat with you about your bilge water, you can tell us all about it, get it all off your mind and save yourself from the frostbite.

RWS

Good idea RWS! Then when a final decision is made he can relax with all of you and send Nancy a pm of what to do or not to do, and he can stay in WARM sunny Florida!

rossjo · Post by **rossjo** » Sat Jan 05, 2013 8:56 am

Which picture is the area under the stateroom floor?

I'm think that 2 bilge pumps might be the trick up there now - using a small pump that would fit lower into the hollow keel area and a bigger pump (for emergencies) above that. Both automatic (floats, not the electronic automatic that click on periodically).

Thoughts?

Commissionpoint · Post by **Commissionpoint** » Sat Jan 05, 2013 10:56 pm

Allen Sr wrote:
RWS wrote:
Commissionpoint wrote:
<snip>

I was thinking about going over to the marina tomorrow with my snowshoes and crossing the parking lot with them to go poke around at it a bit while I have the soles open and its on the hard. Its supposed to be about 35 out. Then I thought if I am putting my snowshoes on I shoud go hike instead, so I changed plans and am going to go hike the Seward Range. That will give me about 18 miles and 5600 feet of total elevation to think the whole thing over some more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seward_Mountain_(New_York)
(in case anybody was wondering where I was talking about)
=======================================
Take a hike ...........

now THAT's funny !

Seriously, an 18 mile hike in the snow?

AND contempleting the bilge water while at it?

Why not come down to Florida and hang out with me, Ready123 and Guglielmo.

We'll do some fishing and hanging out on the water.

Perhaps we could cure you of that 18 mile hiking in the snow problem.

We'll even chat with you about your bilge water, you can tell us all about it, get it all off your mind and save yourself from the frostbite.

RWS
Good idea RWS! Then when a final decision is made he can relax with all of you and send Nancy a pm of what to do or not to do, and he can stay in WARM sunny Florida!

Yes while I appreciate the offer, I am cold blodded. (If you hadn't noticed yet.) If you put me out in the sun I cook. I do much better in the cooler climates, and most of my best thinking comes on the trail while I am alone and not distracted.

I only managed to get the big mountain in that range (Seward) today. It took 10 hours. There was a lot of snow out there and sometines it was waist deep and very slow going. This gave me plenty of time to think about spring and what I would like to do with the Trojan. I concluded that I am definately going to investigate the hollow keel situation, and do what I think needs to be done with that. Still trying to come up with a good solution to 'finish' it. Dry urethane rubber is where I am leaning.

Heres a summit picture from today. Thats me and my friend Nancy (different Nancy) on top of Seward. Those white things behind me are black spruce trees (krummholz) caked in rime ice and snow over a foot thick.

https://picasaweb.google.com/1060575514 ... 8732384850

You guys should try it. I'll come to Florida if you guys come up and go snowshoeing with me.

aaronbocknek · Post by **aaronbocknek** » Sun Jan 06, 2013 6:48 am

wow michael, beautiful pics. i've got frost bit just thinking about all that snow. having said that, i think i'll stick to a milder climate. my people do not do well in the cold. that's why we are in arizona and florida.

The Dog House · Post by **The Dog House** » Sun Jan 06, 2013 7:33 am

Beautiful pictures, but I shiver just looking at them. Anything less than 80 degrees is cold for me.

lawyerdave71 · Post by **lawyerdave71** » Sun Jan 06, 2013 11:13 am

This was a very interesting link.

Lots of experienced boaters on our site but I have to offer my two cents.

Don't be plugging holes to prevent bilge water from stinking up your cabins!

You want the water to freely flow from the stern to the midship to the bow and vice versa.

The reason being when you are taking on water and going down forty miles out, your bilge pumps are your LIFE LINE.

When you are going down, I doubt anyone will say at least my bilge smelled nice!

Once you go throw the pain in the butt job of cleaning all the mold and goop out of the bilge it is easy to maintain with rather cheap chemicals.

And I forget who, but someone made a point about the shower drain. Very good point which everyone should check.

RWS · Post by **RWS** » Sun Jan 06, 2013 12:50 pm

lawyerdave71 wrote:This was a very interesting link.

Lots of experienced boaters on our site but I have to offer my two cents.

Don't be plugging holes to prevent bilge water from stinking up your cabins!

You want the water to freely flow from the stern to the midship to the bow and vice versa.

The reason being when you are taking on water and going down forty miles out, your bilge pumps are your LIFE LINE.

When you are going down, I doubt anyone will say at least my bilge smelled nice!

Once you go throw the pain in the butt job of cleaning all the mold and goop out of the bilge it is easy to maintain with rather cheap chemicals.

And I forget who, but someone made a point about the shower drain. Very good point which everyone should check.

=================================

agreed

on the International the fwd bilge is connected to the aft bilge via the keel

The engine room is a seperate liner - effectively sealed off from the keel and fwd/aft bilge compartments

plus there is a spillover from the shower drain, which would act as an additional bilge pump if necessary.

With 30+ year old boats a bad hose or clamp or fitting could sink the ship.

Thats why we upgraded all three bilge pumps to 1500gph series and added a 4th 3000 gph emergency bilge pump i n the engine room, tied to the isolated genny bettery.

In addition, the Internatiuonal series has three seperate high water alarms tied to the boats horns.

I regularly add liquid DAWN and or Pine Sol to the bilges.

This does make a nice difference in keeping everything clean and oil/scum/snot/booger clean.

RWS

Commissionpoint · Post by **Commissionpoint** » Sun Jan 06, 2013 3:55 pm

^^^^^^^ +10

Of all the things I have done in my relatively short life I have never been a naval architect nor a marine engineer. There is still plenty of time, so lets not rule either of those things out for the future.

With a mind towards that idea, I tend to NOT redesign things I didn't build. I make sure I purchase something that I am happy with the design and R&D on. Covering up/blocking limber holes is something I would never do, and would walk off a boat that had been altered this way in a purchase situation and drive away as fast as I could. I've been in and out of Trojan F-32's probably longer than any of the owners here. If anyone can beat 1977, I apologise. The Eclipse is our second F-32. Everything in between was just ok, did the job, whatever. Its the Trojan design, particularly the 32's 36's and 44's from that era that I really like. The engineering and materials used in construction are far superior to so much else that is out there both from then and today. Thats why, barring an MS in naval architecture in my future, I would do my best to retain the original design as much as possible.

My 2 cents??? If you block up the limber hole on the engine compartment bulkhead you are going to rot out that bulkhead. It was NEVER designed to have standing water up against it hence the hole at the bottom to let water pass forward. Maybe you can get away with such a strategy if you glass the crap out of that entire bulkhead, and when I say glass the crap out of it I mean 22 oz roving and your body weight in resin and then some. What are you going to do about the nasty water that is going to be always trapped under your battery boxes? Diaphram pump? Nothing else is going to do a reasonable job, and even so you will always have water in the bottom of your engine room, a place it was never intended to be in this model. I'd buy an F-32 with oil in the engine room way before I'd buy one with water.

Commissionpoint · Post by **Commissionpoint** » Sun Jan 06, 2013 3:58 pm

RWS wrote: I regularly add liquid DAWN and or Pine Sol to the bilges.

This does make a nice difference in keeping everything clean and oil/scum/snot/booger clean.

RWS

I wish I could do that. Around here they would put me in prison. I just have to get it as clean as I can on the hard every spring and live with it until the following spring. Thankfully my bilges are like the Sahara.

Pine Sol is Nancy's favorite. Ask her about what it does to Vaccu-Flush systems.

Diverted Income · Post by **Diverted Income** » Sun Jan 06, 2013 6:46 pm

Well we made a huge improvement this weekend on the leaks! Sea cocks appear to be fixed. Just had to jump in and get to work! Got a bunch of cleaning done too. Water was migrating thru the keel and ending up in the forward bilge. Wish I was closer to the boat, but that will change in the spring.

What do you do in the winter when the boat is hauled out and water is in the keel? Did Trojan put plugs in the keel? Will need to consider that next fall as it will be out for the winter then.
I know - I am a newbie!
Thanks

Commissionpoint · Post by **Commissionpoint** » Sun Jan 06, 2013 6:53 pm

Diverted Income wrote: What do you do in the winter when the boat is hauled out and water is in the keel? Did Trojan put plugs in the keel? Will need to consider that next fall as it will be out for the winter then.
I know - I am a newbie!
Thanks

Water runs forward in these when the boat is at rest in the water. If its blocked on land on the level it will still behave this way. I have a keel plug.