Raw water strainer

[jcpa]

My boat has a teardrop shaped strainer around the inlet to the seacock for the engine coolant. I have seen in previous forum posts that I should replace this with an internal cup-type strainer - so I could clear it easily from inside the boat. However, can anyone tell me how the teardrop one is likely to be fixed to the hull? Will I have to remove and then re-install the through hull fitting?

Thanking you kindly for any help.

 

[Mistroma]

There's usually a screw on ouside to stop it rotating when installing or removing. The fitting is actually held by nut inside the boat.

No need to remove it though, just fit a finer strainer in-line at a convenient point inside the hull. The outer strainer will protect against blockage in the pipe to the fine strainer. I had an open fitting block once with duck weed and needed to blow it out. Choked from internal filter through to skin fitting.

Most modern boats I've seen have the external fitting you describe plus an internal filter (and syphon break).

 

[vyv_cox]

The external strainer may well prevent large debris, such as plastic bags, from being drawn into the seacock but it cannot be rodded through from inside the boat. This is a very useful property, used by us countless times when transiting the Canal du Midi. Current thinking is to replace it with a Vetus type inside the boat.

In some cases the strainer is part of the skin fitting, in others it is bolted separately. You will almost certainly need to remove the fitting.

 

[jcpa]

Thanks for those useful comments

 

[viva]

I agree with Vyv in that I think it is more important to be able to rod through the seacock and I keep a piece of dowel on board for this after having had the seacock blocked with reeds on the R Exe and at Lymington. I don't know whether a teardrop filter on the hull would have prevented this. I have retained the column type filter holder, but removed the filter tube and connected the inlet hose to a Vetus plastic filter. I find it much more comfortng to see water swirling through the filter when I start the engine.