Marina rules around automatic bilge pumps.

dtynan

dtynan

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I haven't seen this discussed, hence the question.

I was reading the fine-print of a marina contract recently and it said it was against the rules to operate the bilge pump inside the marina. No, not the holding tank, the bilge pump! They specifically dictated that if you had an automatic bilge pump, you switch it off.

I can understand that they want to keep their harbour clean, and not all bilges are sparking examples of cleanliness, but no automatic pump? This seems madness. What if you're away from your boat for a few months? You'd like to know that a small leak from a hatch or similar would be dealt with by the pump. Like most people, I am pretty good at keeping oil and diesel out of the bilge. I could understand if they had strong recommendations that people keep their bilges free from chemicals, but the idea that I would leave the boat on its own without an automatic bilge pump seems like heresy. Is this common? I've never come across it before, but then again, I don't often find myself reading the small print of marina contracts.
 
I think most marinas have a no bilge pumping rule, I’m not sure how many are explicit that this includes automatic pumps. Obviously if you were to accidentally leave it on nobody would know until the marina called you to complain which might be a useful alert!

I can see the problem for the marina - you get a failure in a fuel tank and suddenly they have 100L of diesel in the marina.

Not all boats have auto bilge pumps, they don’t seem to sink. In fact perhaps auto pumps result in complacency, therefore fewer checks and dead batteries = more problems than they solvemask.

Any marina which was actually enforcing this sounds like the sort of place where the staff are actually taking a proactive role and would hopefully notice a significant issue as it was developing.
 
I never leave my boat with the automatic bilge pump on just in case. My boat doesn’t leak and any driven rain that passes the washboards is insignificant. I would assume, a d it’s just a guess, that most boats don’t have automatic bilge pumps on.

My pontoon neighbor’s boat had a pump like noise all morning, and they were not present, no signs of discharge. Contacted marina and they entered the boat. It was a pump running dry, fault with system, and it was very hot. It might have escalated if there was no intervention.
 
If we didn’t leave our auto pump on in our RIB it wouldn’t exactly sink, but it would be so deep the transom would be under water, and the engine would be swamped. Our marina know this, and have no such rule.
 
ylop said:
Not all boats have auto bilge pumps, they don’t seem to sink. In fact perhaps auto pumps result in complacency, therefore fewer checks and dead batteries = more problems than they solvemask.
Click to expand...
True. But an automatic bilge pump connected to something over the WiFi which lets you know battery status as well as whether or not the pump has activated recently, is a nice feature if the boat isn't easily accessible.
 
Daydream believer said:
There is a standard contract used by many marina operators. Issued by their marine federation. Is it possible that is the one that the OP is referring to?
Click to expand...
Probably not. The one I am looking at is in Italian and seems to be specific to the particular marina. As it's a PDF, I had to cut and paste sections to run through Google Translate, which is when I noticed the rule about automatic bilge pumps. I've not seen that before but to be honest, if the document had been in English, I might not have noticed it in this document, either!
 
I have a boat on the hard that has a bilge pump on a timer that switch's the bilge pump on at 3 am every morning and its unlikely that the yard staff is around at that time in the morning and will only pump if there is any water in the bilge anyway
 
It sounds like a "gotcha" rule for if there is a spill. I would ignore it if I felt my safety was affected.

I'm sure there are boats constantly discharging water from AC and heat pump units. I doubt they stand there and wait for it to cut off.

BTW, my PDQ does not have auto bilge pumps. The through hulls are all in bulkheaded compartments and there are no other likely leaks. My F-24 does for some nuance leaks related to lockers etc.; the bilge pump coms on for a few minutes at about 2 am. If the pump did not run periodically the floor would be wet withing a month or so (the bilge is only ~ 3 inches deep--it requires a special float that activates at 1-inch).
 
dtynan said:
I haven't seen this discussed, hence the question.

I was reading the fine-print of a marina contract recently and it said it was against the rules to operate the bilge pump inside the marina. No, not the holding tank, the bilge pump! They specifically dictated that if you had an automatic bilge pump, you switch it off.

I can understand that they want to keep their harbour clean, and not all bilges are sparking examples of cleanliness, but no automatic pump? This seems madness. What if you're away from your boat for a few months? You'd like to know that a small leak from a hatch or similar would be dealt with by the pump. Like most people, I am pretty good at keeping oil and diesel out of the bilge. I could understand if they had strong recommendations that people keep their bilges free from chemicals, but the idea that I would leave the boat on its own without an automatic bilge pump seems like heresy. Is this common? I've never come across it before, but then again, I don't often find myself reading the small print of marina contracts.
Click to expand...
For 45 years now, I've kept boats 120 miles from home. Neither of them have or had automatic bilge pumps. Does that make me a heretic?
I remember a case several years ago when a fuel tank in a big MFV split, and the automatic bilge pump resulted in several hundred litres of diesel fuel being pumped overboard.
 
Our marina in Hull last year had numerous reports of diesel in the basin, eventually after being cleaned up a number of times was traced to a boat that had a leaking fuel tank into its bilge, the auto pump was regularly pumping it out unseen. It cost the marina significant cost to keep clearing as they had to comply with EVA and local council reporting.
 
It was a fairly common sight on marinas and moorings with regard to wooden boats "taking up".
Particularly clinker yachts like Stellas.

As other contributors here , cant say I've felt the need with GRP boats. Particularly as so many have dripless seals now.
 
Snowgoose-1 said:
It was a fairly common sight on marinas and moorings with regard to wooden boats "taking up".
Particularly clinker yachts like Stellas.

As other contributors here , cant say I've felt the need with GRP boats. Particularly as so many have dripless seals now.
Click to expand...
There the user manual for my boat says that the shaft seals are meant to drip about 1 drop per minute
 
On one of my early boats moored on the Norfolk B-roads, the one time I switched off the auto pump, I returned a couple of weeks later to find the boat had taken on a lot of water. The pitot tube fitted through the hull had leaked. Fortunately the level didn’t cause any engine or electrical problems. A lesson learnt, never to be repeated.
 
There should also be logical exceptions. For example, I have never had a boat were fuel or gasoline could get into the bilge. The tanks were located on the bridge deck or an open transom cockpit and drained into the sea dirrectly. The engines were outboards. Most tenders would also fall in this catagory; even if the tender sank, the fuel tanks "should" have the vent closed when not in use. It would just float. And rain being what it is, without a sump pump they will fill up and overflow ... period. If on davits the drain is open, so same as an automatic sump pump.

The other concern, of course, is fire. But that would require limitations on leaving pretty much anything powered up.
 
I can think of risks either way:
  • Pump runs dry leading to fire: multiple boats at risk.
  • Thru-hull connection fails/leaks: single boat sinks.
Be interesting to know what insurers prefer; it would be funny if the marina's insurance required the rule, and the boat owner's insurance required an automatic pump.
 
The yard launched my Stella and phoned me at work about 1hrs drive away.
"We've launched your boat, she's leaking and we're all going home. You had better get here."
 
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