A better strum box?

[dgadee]

Yes, but hard to check with whale box - it needs to be screwed down because it is so light.

I may pop over to a plumber's merchant and see if there's something suitalble to put something together as a replacement. The brass should just lie there and allow better access.

Once again apologies to VicS for grumpiness.

 

[Rigger Mortice]

Yes, but hard to check with whale box - it needs to be screwed down because it is so light.

I may pop over to a plumber's merchant and see if there's something suitalble to put something together as a replacement. The brass should just lie there and allow better access.
.

Seriously, I wouldn't screw mine down, though I understand why you have done that. In an emergency, when you are pumping like mad the last thing you would want to do is unscrew a blocked up strum box to clear a blockage.

Personally, I would either re-route the pipes or add some weight to hold the thing down.

If you come up with a new design do let us know what you have done.

 

[VicS]

Well no one seems to have come up with any significant advance on my original suggestions!

You dont say which of the Whale strum boexs . I guess the horizontal one in a shallow bilge. Possibly the valves dont work as well as they do in the vertical type. A separate NRV in a vertical section of pipe may work better

one of these ..... clicky picture

......will leave less water than a fixed pump and the last few cm³ are easily mopped up with a sponge. You'll find it useful too for pumping water out of the dinghy.

Only one way of ensuring bone dry bilges 100% of the time and that is to have the boat hauled out and put in a dry shed!

.

 

[Boathook]

Well no one seems to have come up with any significant advance on my original suggestions!

You dont say which of the Whale strum boexs . I guess the horizontal one in a shallow bilge. Possibly the valves dont work as well as they do in the vertical type. A separate NRV in a vertical section of pipe may work better

.

My whale strum box has a non return valve and that has always let by. I suspect that's it's because it is horizontal and the water weight does not close it well. I find that a sponge soon removes the last bits of water if I can be bothered. The design of the strum box will always leave a few mm of water in the bilge anyway.

 

[rob2]

When I bought my boat, the pick-up pipe just dangled into the bilge and we reasoned that the pump valves must be the only NRV in the system. Previous experience already indicated that NRVs don't seal like a closed seacock, so no-one was surprised that the content of the pipe flowed back over time. To improve the level to which the pump would work, we installed a strum box (with NRV, by coincidence). It now takes longer for the pipe to dribble back. Actually a cock would work, but what a faff to remember it when you need to pump.

Looking on the positive side of all this, I wouldn't really like to have the pipe full of bilge water, stinking the place out so if necessary I pump out on arrival and sponge out before leaving.

Rob.