Bung question

[Gryphon2]

It is recommended that a wooden bung should be wired to each skin fitting. What size should the bung be?
1 The inner size of the hose ...assuming the hose has broken.
2 The inner diameter of the inlet on the fitting...assuming the fitting has broken.
3 The diameter of the hole in the hull...assuming the skin fitting has parted company with the boat.

Or perhaps I wire 3 to each skin fitting and hope they have so much bouyancy they help keep the boat afloat......

Please feel free to start a rancarous debate.

 

[Daydream believer]

It is a waste of time, because the break would probably be a split, not a clean one & a bung will not do the job.
That being said, I have a bung that would fit the hole where the valve fits & it would ignore the hose diameter.

 

[veshengro]

Don't bother with 3 bungs, just wire one big bung and a coarse wood Rasp to each skin fitting. In case of any size of failure you will Rasp the plug down to size..Oh! yes you will If the boat is sinking, you definitely will...I promise you will

 

[Rum Run]

The was a product a while ago which was made of a soft rubbery compound and was tapered from about 1/2" to 2", so fitting a wide range of orifices.
If not available from chandler's, possibly an internet search will find one.
I'm not going to put a link on here!

 

[penberth3]

It is recommended that a wooden bung should be wired to each skin fitting. What size should the bung be?
1 The inner size of the hose ...assuming the hose has broken.
2 The inner diameter of the inlet on the fitting...assuming the fitting has broken.
3 The diameter of the hole in the hull...assuming the skin fitting has parted company with the boat.

Or perhaps I wire 3 to each skin fitting and hope they have so much bouyancy they help keep the boat afloat......

Please feel free to start a rancarous debate.

To simplify things, a single bung of the right size would fit "1" and "2", and probably "3" as well.

 

[vyv_cox]

I remember buying one of those bung collections, it was in 1988. We were not so well advised in those days, so I didn't wire each one to its appropriate seacock, I just left them in their plastic bag. I changed boats and took it with me, and then the same again.

I opened the bag in 2014 when I pulled one of my Blakes seacocks out while afloat and pushed the wooden bung in. Ten minutes later I pulled it out, replaced the Blakes cone and put the bung back in the bag.

It's like issuing airline passengers with parachutes.

 

[LittleSister]

I think the hose is an irrelevance. The chances of both the hose failing and the seacock failing at the same time are negligible, and in any case if a hose fails it's likely to be a split or an abraded/burnt/w.h.y. hole for which a wooden bung wouldn't be any use..

I've always sized for the internal diameter of the skin fitting, but considering the hull opening diameter is a good idea. If one size doesn't fit both, as penberth3 suggest, one could have the fitting sized one attached to the fitting, and the hull opening one stored elsewhere (but clearly marked as to which thru-hull it relates). That also has the advantage that If the fitting has completely failed, leaving just the hole in the hull, you will have a lot of water in the boat and might not be able to find the internal remnant of the fitting and the bung attached to it washing around underwater in the bilges, so a separately stored & marked one would be a good idea on that front.

All the above is purely hypothetical and guesswork. I've bought several packs of bungs over the years, and carried them thousands of miles, but never actually used one. (I should probably continue to buy packs of bungs, as it's obviously a winning strategy!) I've had leaks in boats, and was even involved in a sinking of someone else's, but in none of them were thru-hulls/seacocks the problem, or wooden conical bungs any use in addressing the problem.

 

[Gryphon2]

Has anyone ever used one successfully? One thing that I have always thought is that they are never as soft as I believe they should be. They seem to be made of ash or something similarly hard...not ideal for smacking In a possibly irregular hole.

 

[LittleSister]

You would need something pretty hefty to get one solidly in, I would think. I believe the technical term for the tool is 'a large size persuader'.

(How you get the bung out again afterwards is a different question to be worried about at your leisure!)

 

[Tranona]

Has anyone ever used one successfully? One thing that I have always thought is that they are never as soft as I believe they should be. They seem to be made of ash or something similarly hard...not ideal for smacking In a possibly irregular hole.

See post#6 - a rare event! Attaching bungs to seacocks is a largely cosmetic exercise, so if you want to do it then just make sure it is larger than the internal bore of the fitting. Keeping them in the chart table in their plastic back will be just as effective, but if you want to show how well prepared you are then buy a pair of these seabung.com/about.html Only £40

 

[penberth3]

See post#6 - a rare event! Attaching bungs to seacocks is a largely cosmetic exercise, so if you want to do it then just make sure it is larger than the internal bore of the fitting. Keeping them in the chart table in their plastic back will be just as effective, but if you want to show how well prepared you are then buy a pair of these seabung.com/about.html Only £40

£40, to do the same job as a few pieces of scrap timber! Someome is taking the piss.

 

[Tranona]

£40, to do the same job as a few pieces of scrap timber! Someome is taking the piss.

But they do look pretty in a fetching shade of red - after all this bung business is a largely cosmetic exercise. Would make a good Christmas stocking present for the boat owner who has everything.

BTW a set of wood bungs to meet RORC requirements are £13

 

[LittleSister]

Keeping them in the chart table in their plastic back will be just as effective,

I'm in two minds about that, and at various times have either had them tied on or (due to laziness) in a bag in a locker.

If, as likely, when you need one you'll likely be struggling in a fairly inaccessible location, with a lot of water, all sloshing about (and by now probably with some oil in it!), probably limited lighting, and quite likely to drop the bung at least once in the process. Being able to immediately find it again by feel alone will be a distinct advantage over having to extract yourself, go back to the bag, find another of the right size (you did have extra spares, didn't you?), and start again.

The other advantage of tying it to the skin fitting is that it encourages you to make sure you have the right size for that skin fitting. If you are looking in your plastic bag from a locker (especially in a panic), will you select an appropriate sized one, given that the fitting you're trying to block you may not have looked at for a long time and is now under water? (Also, I've bought several bags of bungs over the years, quite a few of which were too small for any skin fitting I've ever come across.)

Having once been in a boat that was sinking due to water ingress, even though we were not in mortal danger I know how alarming and suddenly demanding it is, how every slight delay from some lack of prior preparation seems unbelievable, and the simplest job, even just moving about the boat, suddenly becomes an enormous challenge due to water and oil everywhere, and the boat heeling and reeling about in unfamiliar ways.

 

[Daydream believer]

From what I have read in one report from an early Whitbread race it might be better to have a bread bin attached to each sea cock.

 

[Refueler]

The old idae was a soft wood bung that would actually swell when water contact .. increasing the hold. I have been on ships where we have plugged cargo pump pipes with such as a temp measure .... but there - the Deck Storekeeper has whittled the wood to fit.

My personal idea is to have tapered soft rubber bungs ... the its basically one size fits all ...

 

[Daydream believer]

I thought that the bungs one usually buys are Beech. That swells quite well in water.
I cannot imagine trying to taper bits of wood in an emergency to fit a hole. It would have to be fairly round to start with.

It is bad enough when the wife comes home from the hardware store with a broom head & a handle, that is totally the wrong size & holds the 2 bits in front of hubby with that appealing " Well you are supposed to know it all" look.

Try getting that to a nice round fit with a workmate & sandpaper & a plane & bottle of PVA glue. Not anything like knee deep in water & drowning, is it?
Worse still when a month later the b..y thing gives up & flops off the end of the stick when she is sweeping the floor
So now you have to cut a 2 inch split off the handle, get the nail out of the broom head & start all over again.
12 months later, with a now 3ft long broom handle she heads to B & Q muttering something about useless husbands & the cycle repeats itself.

 

[Tranona]

I'm in two minds about that, and at various times have either had them tied on or (due to laziness) in a bag in a locker.

If, as likely, when you need one you'll likely be struggling in a fairly inaccessible location, with a lot of water, all sloshing about (and by now probably with some oil in it!), probably limited lighting, and quite likely to drop the bung at least once in the process. Being able to immediately find it again by feel alone will be a distinct advantage over having to extract yourself, go back to the bag, find another of the right size (you did have extra spares, didn't you?), and start again.

The other advantage of tying it to the skin fitting is that it encourages you to make sure you have the right size for that skin fitting. If you are looking in your plastic bag from a locker (especially in a panic), will you select an appropriate sized one, given that the fitting you're trying to block you may not have looked at for a long time and is now under water? (Also, I've bought several bags of bungs over the years, quite a few of which were too small for any skin fitting I've ever come across.)

Having once been in a boat that was sinking due to water ingress, even though we were not in mortal danger I know how alarming and suddenly demanding it is, how every slight delay from some lack of prior preparation seems unbelievable, and the simplest job, even just moving about the boat, suddenly becomes an enormous challenge due to water and oil everywhere, and the boat heeling and reeling about in unfamiliar ways.

One can imagine all sorts of scenarios - I was really suggesting that the likelihood of you actually needing to use one in an emergency is so small that it really does not matter where you keep them so long as you know where you left them! hence the reference to cosmetic. RORC, MCA surveyors like to see them tied to the seacocks despite the fact that I doubt they have ever seen them used for real on charter boats or racing boats. So owners do it to get the tick in the box.

 

[Refueler]

I thought that the bungs one usually buys are Beech. That swells quite well in water.
I cannot imagine trying to taper bits of wood in an emergency to fit a hole. It would have to be fairly round to start with.

It is bad enough when the wife comes home from the hardware store with a broom head & a handle, that is totally the wrong size & holds the 2 bits in front of hubby with that appealing " Well you are supposed to know it all" look.

Try getting that to a nice round fit with a workmate & sandpaper & a plane & bottle of PVA glue. Not anything like knee deep in water & drowning, is it?
Worse still when a month later the b..y thing gives up & flops off the end of the stick when she is sweeping the floor
So now you have to cut a 2 inch split off the handle, get the nail out of the broom head & start all over again.
12 months later, with a now 3ft long broom handle she heads to B & Q muttering something about useless husbands & the cycle repeats itself.

My whittling Storekeeper was in reference to cargo line ... not seawater inlet.

But the broom handle >>>>> Got the bloody T shirt as well !!

 

[andsarkit]

I have a set of these rubber bungs out of a condemned liferaft.

I doubt they would make a perfect seal but would certainly slow down the ingress.

 

[vyv_cox]

The reality is that just about anything will be good enough in emergency. A towel would be enough to reduce flow to a trickle. I have repacked a stern gland on a 1.5 inch shaft when afloat. A couple of turns of rag stopped all the flow while I prepared the new packing rings.