Automatic bilge pump of choice?

Nigelpickin

Nigelpickin

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www.cornishcottageholidays.co.uk
Hello

I’m just putting a set of spares together for our Atlantic Crossing and I’ve decided to swap out my 2 Rule Mate 1100 with something more reliable, (I’ll clean the Rules and use them as back ups).

Local chandlery has Seaflo but are there better automatic pumps that I should be getting?

Any suggestions welcomed.
 
Most if not all bilge pumps sold by chandlers are just rebranded Chinese toys, I'm afraid.
If you are after highly reliable commercial grade pumps, none of those plastic things can cut the mustard.
This producer is a good place to start for checking out the specs of more serious pumps.
 
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Fwiw, the two Rule 500 (iirc) auto bilge pumps in our boat are very old and never failed, its the floater switches that go wrong,

CEM is ok i think, but all big pumps in our canados are Gianneschi including the two non auto bilge pumps, and that is the real stuff !
 
I fully agree that Gianneschi products are great B, and I wouldn't want anything else for the fresh water circuit.
But afaik they dismissed bilge pumps already some years ago - don't ask me why.
 
Nigel, I am with Bart on this one. All the boats I have had over forty years or so have had Rule pumps and not one has failed. I have had a few float switch failures over the years - maybe three or four. Also I once had a strainer blocked but I couldn't blame that on the pump. I would just carry a couple of spare pumps but definitely spare float switches.
 
Nigel, I would look at this differently. I have the same experience as others above- the Rule pumps are super reliable.

The problem with them isn't reliability. It's that their flow rate is small. Look up the flow rate of seawater into your hull with a 2 inch dia round hole @1m head and you'll be shocked. Ballpark 550 litres/minute. Your Rules are ballpark 120 if the chunkier "2000" model and often quoted "up to", worryingly. So probably all your Rules running together aren't enough even for a smallish hole . Nor will your engine cooling pumps save you because their flow rate is nothing special - those Italian set ups where you operate a Y valve to let your engine raw water pumps drain your bilge in an emergency are mostly comedy.

So you just need a MUCH bigger pump. Now, all those big CEMs and Gianneschis are beautiful but they don't have submersible motors nor do their self primers have a super-big flow rate, except the BRA200 from CEM which is too heavy and super expensive for no upside.

What I did therefore was buy this https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke-dwp200a-2-submersible-dirty-water-pump/ . Awesome flow rate, good quality and you can just lift it. Sure you need genset running but I reckon if my gensets are both underwater it's too late anyway. My thinking is that running this will keep up with a modest hole in the hull and generally buy me time to plug a hole with wooden/rubber bung thing or swim under the boat to patch the hull. I keep a canvas patch (2mx2m hemmed with eyelets all round) with lanyards in the same emergency bag as this pump. Lastly if you have a fire the same pump can be lowered over the side to pump seawater into the boat if that's your choice to deal with the fire.

So in your shoes I'd buy this Clarke pump, or 2, and leave the Rules untouched. Also it's possibly helpful to leave OEM bilge pumps in place in the case of a total loss insurance claim.
 
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Ok - so that’s some scary food for thought....

Currently leaning towards 12v Rule auto pumps wired to the alarm system with 2 spares so that I can swap out - clean and dry on a schedule.

And a BFO Clarke that I can shove into the bilge/forpeak/engine room to evacuate large volumes - it’s 1500w so should run from the inverter while I panic and get the Onan running.

The supplied manual electric pumps on Lagoons are Whale gulpa 320’s - which are not submersible and not really fit for the purpose of shooting out serious ingress - they just about keep up as shower pumps.

Thanks very much for the advice, (and sleepless nights while I wait for a Clarke to arrive John).

:)
 
jfm said:
those Italian set ups where you operate a Y valve to let your engine raw water pumps drain your bilge in an emergency are mostly comedy.
Click to expand...
I believe to have already mentioned in the past that the only reason why I've got that Y valve in my current boat is that she came with it from the factory, and I wouldn't have specced one myself. That said, dismissing the system as a comedy is a bit harsh.

I never bothered doing the math (also because for the engines the capacity is obviously rpm-dependant), but since in the e/r alone I've got two basic 2000gph electric pumps, the diaphragm pump which can be used as a backup of any w/t compartment through a selectable manifold, plus the possibility to suck water from the bilge with both engines (through a 3" hose each!), I suspect that the total capacity is also in the 500 lpm ballpark if not higher, with no need of AC.

Not that I disagree with the train of thought behind your pump, mind.
That's definitely an interesting bit of kit to have onboard, and in Nigel's boots I would also consider it.
Just saying... :)
 
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IDAMAY said:
Nigel, I am with Bart on this one. All the boats I have had over forty years or so have had Rule pumps and not one has failed. I have had a few float switch failures over the years - maybe three or four. Also I once had a strainer blocked but I couldn't blame that on the pump. I would just carry a couple of spare pumps but definitely spare float switches.
Click to expand...
I thought to mention this before, but I forgot.

My experience with floating switches was exactly the same on all my previous boats.
Otoh, the OEM switches that I've got on the current boat are different from the usual chandlers stuff, since they are mostly meant for industrial applications.
I've got 15 of them IIRC, spread around each w/t compartment, and they are still the original ones fitted in 2004, all working just fine.
Actually, I did replace one last year, but only because a clumsy mechanic stepped above it with his shoe. Btw, the switch itself withstood the punishment, but its cable was broken at the point where it's epoxied inside the switch, and it was impossible to re-attach it properly.
The only drawback is that they require a support to be installed, as per pic below (forget the fact that there are three of them in the pic, each serve a different purpose, but that's another story).
Calling them at least as reliable as any pump is an understatement.
I'm attaching also a pic of the label, just in case anyone would be interested (ILSP8 is the model name, as I was told).
DrXUEtpY_o.jpg
oZAUcDaf_o.jpg
 
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jfm said:
Nigel, I would look at this differently. I have the same experience as others above- the Rule pumps are super reliable.

The problem with them isn't reliability. It's that their flow rate is small. Look up the flow rate of seawater into your hull with a 2 inch dia round hole @1m head and you'll be shocked. Ballpark 550 litres/minute. Your Rules are ballpark 120 if the chunkier "2000" model and often quoted "up to", worryingly. So probably all your Rules running together aren't enough even for a smallish hole . Nor will your engine cooling pumps save you because their flow rate is nothing special - those Italian set ups where you operate a Y valve to let your engine raw water pumps drain your bilge in an emergency are mostly comedy.

So you just need a MUCH bigger pump. Now, all those big CEMs and Gianneschis are beautiful but they don't have submersible motors nor do their self primers have a super-big flow rate, except the BRA200 from CEM which is too heavy and super expensive for no upside.

What I did therefore was buy this https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke-dwp200a-2-submersible-dirty-water-pump/ . Awesome flow rate, good quality and you can just lift it. Sure you need genset running but I reckon if my gensets are both underwater it's too late anyway. My thinking is that running this will keep up with a modest hole in the hull and generally buy me time to plug a hole with wooden/rubber bung thing or swim under the boat to patch the hull. I keep a canvas patch (2mx2m hemmed with eyelets all round) with lanyards in the same emergency bag as this pump. Lastly if you have a fire the same pump can be lowered over the side to pump seawater into the boat if that's your choice to deal with the fire.

So in your shoes I'd buy this Clarke pump, or 2, and leave the Rules untouched. Also it's possibly helpful to leave OEM bilge pumps in place in the case of a total loss insurance claim.
Click to expand...

That's interesting and I'd like to see how that was calculated. I have a fear of holes in the boat and seacock / hose failure. I have 3x 3000 gal/hour (US gal), 1 in each section of my boat (ER, midship and bow). The one in the engine room I tested against a seacock failure by opening a decoupled from hose 1 inch diameter seacock and indeed the flow rate was shocking but the pump handled it in it's stride i.e. could pump out the water faster than it came in. Seacock was from bottom of the boat at ~3.5 foot depth. Bit of a raw test but gave me some peace of mind that once the bilge alarm sounded I'd have time to put a bung in before the batteries went flat.
 
BruceK said:
That's interesting and I'd like to see how that was calculated.
Click to expand...
Without doing any accurate math, the surface of a 2" dia hole (which is what jfm mentioned) is 4 times the surface of a 1" hole, so the flows are bound to be VERY different...
Btw, in the event of a hull damaged due to a grounding or a collision with something afloat, even the 2" hole risks to be optimistic...

As an aside, I never thought of opening purposely a fountain of salt in the e/r just for testing the pumps effectiveness.
Better in your boat than in mine, I say! :D
 
Drastic I know. But how else can you do a controlled real world test rather than by faith. Not much I can put onboard to cover a hole caused by a collision accident but I can for equipment failure.

Edit. The engines did not get wet btw and ithe bilges were rinced out with fresh water. Salt water stinks up quickly.
 
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Yep I see the alternative view in some of the posts above. Fair enough. Other benefit of BFO Clarke pump is when you have interboat water fights with mates. It beats any Super Soaker I ever saw :encouragement:
 
MapisM said:
Most if not all bilge pumps sold by chandlers are just rebranded Chinese toys, I'm afraid.
Click to expand...

Quite right. At METS, Amsterdam, you'll see stand after stand offering copied Rule pumps. As Rule said to me, if they manage to have a factory closed downn, another starts up. An impossible situation. The problem is that the copies are really difficult to distinguish from the originals. Even chandlers can be taken in.
 
jfm said:
Yep I see the alternative view in some of the posts above. Fair enough. Other benefit of BFO Clarke pump is when you have interboat water fights with mates. It beats any Super Soaker I ever saw :encouragement:
Click to expand...

mmm. I may just get one for the Trafalgar Day battle re-enactment :encouragement:
 
If you buy a pump with a built in automatic sensor beware that some of them fire up once a minute for a fraction of a second to sense water. This fraction of a second doesn’t sound much but over time it will flatten the batteries.
Hence I prefer a separate float switch.
 
We have a Rule pump - not as a bilge pump - but Princess fit them inside their bespoke grey water tanks.
In our case, the float switch failed in the first few weeks so I fitted a Wema hi/lo switch (the grey water tank is quite deep and the simple Rule float switch didn't let much water build up.
Anyway, the same Rule pump is in there - 10 years on.
Generally speaking, bilge pumps don't get much use so this usage in a grey water tank is a tribute to the Rule reliability.
Oh no - I bet that has jinxed it now - but I do have a spare!!
 
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