A scary moment!

[No Regrets]

Went on our fitting out cruise last weekend in our lovely old Broom 30, and I noticed water in one of the upper side bilges, so cleared it up, checked the engine hoses and so on, but nothing found.

Then, to my horror, saw water coming in from a small hole in the hull where the reinforcing point and engine mounts were.

Kept mopping it up, as it was only a tiny trickle, and had horrible thoughts it could be a breached hull!!

Now the Broom hull must be pretty thick, and we haven't hit anything, but it was very cold over winter, and she was in the water all the time.

A it was small, and would overflow eventually into the lower bilge which has an auto pump fitted, I went to bed, but woke up at 2AM as it was playing on my mind.

Opened the step hatch, took a peek in with a torch, and it was full again...

I just sat there wondering what to do next, and imagining the cost of a lift and repair looming, and as luck would have it, heard the very quiet domestic water pump go 'brrr' just for a second!

Traced it to a weeping copper pipe joint, and fixed it in ten minutes!

There was no sign of any leak earlier, nor any water running down from the sink area, as it's all hidden, but it did worry me for a while...

Bilges are nice and clean now

 

[RichardS]

The usual advice on the forum is that when you see water stick your finger in it and taste it! Sounds disgusting but it worked for me when we had a similar leak from the water supply.

Richard

 

[prv]

The usual advice on the forum is that when you see water stick your finger in it and taste it! Sounds disgusting but it worked for me when we had a similar leak from the water supply.

I have an intermittent leak that I'm not 100% certain isn't the toilet.

I let my dad taste that one

Pete

 

[sarabande]

you did soldering at 2 a.m. ??? Is this normal, and if so, how have you trained the crew to ignore you ?

 

[Norman_E]

you did soldering at 2 a.m. ??? Is this normal, and if so, how have you trained the crew to ignore you ?

Perhaps it was a compression fitting?

 

[sarabande]

yes, I did think of that a bit later ....

 

[Simondjuk]

I have an intermittent leak that I'm not 100% certain isn't the toilet.

I let my dad taste that one

Pete

Thanks for that, I just spat beer across the boat.

 

[aquaplane]

The trouble with the taste test is, it's not much use if you sail on fresh water. It way work for urine though, but no thanks.

 

[LadyInBed]

Traced it to a weeping copper pipe joint, and fixed it in ten minutes!

I had a similar problem after the bad 2010/11winter, turned on the domestic water and the pump came on for slightly longer than usual then came on again a couple of mins later!
Found a compression joint on the plastic pipe work had blown, 5 min job to fix once I found the joint.

 

[mcframe]

The usual advice on the forum is that when you see water stick your finger in it and taste it! Sounds disgusting but it worked for me when we had a similar leak from the water supply.

"Thank Christ it's seawater! - I though we might have lost the tonic store!".

I once found some handy bilge storage that had /just enough/ height for a dozen beer cans - Sadly I stacked them longitudinally, and after a week of tacking, half of them had rolled enough to grind through the rims and I had a bilge full of sticky Stella residue.

 

[Stu Jackson]

Traced it to a weeping copper pipe joint, and fixed it in ten minutes!

Isn't that enough to make you remove all of those fittings from your boat?

 

[No Regrets]

Ah, sorry! It WAS a compression fittting, but soon responded to a bit of torque.

I did taste it originally to make sure it wasn't coolant, or at least didn't contain any coolant. Trouble is, it's in the Thames, and the water tastes the same as the water suppliers

 

[prv]

I once found some handy bilge storage that had /just enough/ height for a dozen beer cans - Sadly I stacked them longitudinally, and after a week of tacking, half of them had rolled enough to grind through the rims and I had a bilge full of sticky Stella residue.

Same happened to me, thanks to my dad's habit of stashing a few more beer cans in a different place every time he comes on board. This time it was the dry food locker - and it was only Fosters anyway



Pete

 

[Simondjuk]

At least you only had to worry about cleaning up and not about beer having been wasted.

 

[WilliamUK]

Fosters? Stella?
I'd sooner clean the bilges than drink either... it's all about the real ale.

 

[Searush]

Fosters? Stella?
I'd sooner clean the bilges than drink either... it's all about the real ale.

You beat me too it. Lager is only fit for cleaning the bilges anyway.

Why do you think they have to serve it so cold? It's so you can't taste the awful stuff! Proper beer is Ale & should be served at cellar temp which is just below room temp & allows all the wonderful flavours of each indivudual brew to be fully savoured. Long live local micro-breweries!

One of the joys of UK travel is to try the local brew as you go. Carrying chemically produced, supermarket lager is plain daft.

 

[ffiill]

Went on our fitting out cruise last weekend in our lovely old Broom 30, and I noticed water in one of the upper side bilges, so cleared it up, checked the engine hoses and so on, but nothing found.

Then, to my horror, saw water coming in from a small hole in the hull where the reinforcing point and engine mounts were.

Kept mopping it up, as it was only a tiny trickle, and had horrible thoughts it could be a breached hull!!

Now the Broom hull must be pretty thick, and we haven't hit anything, but it was very cold over winter, and she was in the water all the time.

A it was small, and would overflow eventually into the lower bilge which has an auto pump fitted, I went to bed, but woke up at 2AM as it was playing on my mind.

Opened the step hatch, took a peek in with a torch, and it was full again...

I just sat there wondering what to do next, and imagining the cost of a lift and repair looming, and as luck would have it, heard the very quiet domestic water pump go 'brrr' just for a second!

Traced it to a weeping copper pipe joint, and fixed it in ten minutes!

There was no sign of any leak earlier, nor any water running down from the sink area, as it's all hidden, but it did worry me for a while...

Bilges are nice and clean now

My boat was out of water and over the winter kept cursing what I thought was a leaking deck filling the bilges with water neither would my shurflow water pump work properly.
Never put two and two together until I had engine hatch off whilst working on the pump.
Lovely big jet of water blowing out of frost damaged copper pipe!
Oh and even worse before Christmas I took off pipe under galley sink didnt go back until the New Year and it took me two vists when finally I noticed loads of water in undersink cupoboard!

 

[No Regrets]

I had a split one earlier, but just lobbed a couple of inches off it, there appeared to be plenty spare, presumably for just this sort of occasion.

Result! LOL...

God bless the olive and compression joint!

 

[rob2]

One Spring I visited a friend's Folkboat which he was just preparing for the new season. "Ah, sun over the boom!" he said and produced a can each from the bilges. It turned out they had been sat on the keel bolts all winter and, once disturbed, sprayed their content all over the cabin. Luckily the marina was in easy walking distance of a micro-brewery pub.

Rob.

 

[misterg]

Fosters? Stella?
I'd sooner clean the bilges than drink either... it's all about the real ale.

Does Boddingtons count? Had a couple of cans of that burst in the bilges of our last boat. (I think salt water ate the aluminium cans).

Thought the keel bolts were leaking on our current boat, as there was a persistent build up of salty tasting water in the bilge. Turned out it was a cracked toilet .

Andy