Hand pump for inaccessible bilge suggestions please...

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dewent

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Whitehaven Marina
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I would like to leave the bilge nice and dry over winter. We have had a diesel leak over the summer so i have been throwing liberal volumes of bilgex below decks over the summer. The auto bilge pump works great but still leaves some water. The keel is 2.2m deep and very inaccessible due to water and diesel tanks amid ships. Can anyone suggest a good portable product/machine that I can use to get her fully dry?
 
dewent said:
I would like to leave the bilge nice and dry over winter. We have had a diesel leak over the summer so i have been throwing liberal volumes of bilgex below decks over the summer. The auto bilge pump works great but still leaves some water. The keel is 2.2m deep and very inaccessible due to water and diesel tanks amid ships. Can anyone suggest a good portable product/machine that I can use to get her fully dry?
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Even hand pumps will tend to leave a little water. The contents of the suction hose will drain back into the bilges at the very least unless a foot valve, perhaps combined with a strum box, is fitted.

Pela, or similar, a good suggestion from Sarabande
 
An alternative would be a wet vac, they're great for doing unreachable nooks and crannies. Does anyone do a 12v wet vac? If not then drive a mains vac with an inverter.
 
What's the boat? Avocet's a long-keeler with a deep sump (not 2.2m, mind!) , and I've NEVER managed to get a completely dry bilge. As others have said, you always end up with the contents of the suction hose draining back into the bottom when you stop pumping. We often joke about Avocet being more likely to get osmosis from the INSIDE for that reason! The best we've been able to do is get most of it out with the main bilge pump, then most of the rest out with a stirrup pump with a narrower suction hose, then chuck a couple of disposable nappies in there to soak up the cupful that remains. Not a permanent solution though.
 
Pela is good for draining the last drops out of inaccessible spaces, and also if the water will be oily hence not really suitable for overboard discharge.

For general bilge suctioning, I've added a diverter valve to my shower sump pump, attached to several metres of smallish transparent PVC tubing. Being a relatively flat-bottomed modern vessel there are lots of crannies where water can collect out of reach of the bilge pump. I can flip the switch in the heads, and take my hose and go "hoover" out the dregs from wherever. (Or even better, when my mate's 5-year-old nephew is on board, let him do it. He finds it loads of fun "opening the floor" looking for water, and loves watching it gurgle up the hose!). Because you can lift the hose to "chase" the last bits of water down to the pump, you don't have the back-flow problem from a fixed bilge pump.

Pete
 
dewent said:
Which Pela model would I need to reach 2m deep through a 100mm narrow gap?
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I've got the big Pela and by joining all the tubes together have a 3 metre reach, there is nothing magical about the Pela tubes so any rigidish tube to fit the adaptors will do the job and for water as opposed to oil it wouldn't have to be all that rigid.
 
prv said:
For general bilge suctioning, I've added a diverter valve to my shower sump pump, attached to several metres of smallish transparent PVC tubing. Being a relatively flat-bottomed modern vessel there are lots of crannies where water can collect out of reach of the bilge pump. I can flip the switch in the heads, and take my hose and go "hoover" out the dregs from wherever.
Click to expand...

+1'ish
 
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