Seacocks Again!

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richardbrennan

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The time has come to replace my seacocks which are now 15 years old. I am tempted to fit Marelon but am somewhat concerned by reports of the handles breaking off and that they absorb water after time making them stiff to operate; does anyone have experience of this?

The Marelon appears to have two advantages over bronze, the first is that they are about 25% cheaper and the second is that the installation would appear simpler as you only have to fit the seacock onto the skin fitting, as all the rest is incorporated in the one unit, rather than having skin fitting, valve, 90 degree bend and hose tail all to be fitted together.
 
A 'new gear' piece in YM last month covered DZR fittings from ASAP, who have overcome previous objections that whereas the valve was made in the correct material, the skin fitting and hose tails were not. All their DZR fittings are marked 'CR'.
 
The boat is a 15 year old Westerly Ocean 33 so possiblyhas better kit than a 5 year old AWB. One of the problems is that I don't know for certain what the current fittings are, there's a mass of lettering on them, none of which seems to make much sense. I rubbed down the galley outlet last year to bare metal and there did seem to be a tinge of pink that is giving me some concern. So far I have given them a hefty swipe with a hammer each year prior to relaunching just to make sure they were not about to fall off. Assuming I can do the work myself, we are not talking about an enormous amount of money as I only have one 1 1/2 and three 3/4 inch cocks to replace, the cockpit drains are moulded in and I have a saildrive so no engine intake cock. The Bronze from my local chandlery works out at about £290 and Marelon at about £220 which is not that much for peace of mind.

I have one further question; my current toilet intake has a tear shaped slotted strainer type skin fitting, this is not available in the Marelon. Do others have plain toilet intakes or is the strainer worth having?

Finally I would still be grateful for experiences with the Marelon products.
 
richardbrennan said:
The boat is a 15 year old Westerly Ocean 33 so possiblyhas better kit than a 5 year old AWB. One of the problems is that I don't know for certain what the current fittings are, there's a mass of lettering on them, none of which seems to make much sense. I rubbed down the galley outlet last year to bare metal and there did seem to be a tinge of pink that is giving me some concern. So far I have given them a hefty swipe with a hammer each year prior to relaunching just to make sure they were not about to fall off. Assuming I can do the work myself, we are not talking about an enormous amount of money as I only have one 1 1/2 and three 3/4 inch cocks to replace, the cockpit drains are moulded in and I have a saildrive so no engine intake cock. The Bronze from my local chandlery works out at about £290 and Marelon at about £220 which is not that much for peace of mind.

I have one further question; my current toilet intake has a tear shaped slotted strainer type skin fitting, this is not available in the Marelon. Do others have plain toilet intakes or is the strainer worth having?

Finally I would still be grateful for experiences with the Marelon products.
Click to expand...
I have no external strainers on any seacock
 
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richardbrennan said:
The boat is a 15 year old Westerly Ocean 33 so possiblyhas better kit than a 5 year old AWB. One of the problems is that I don't know for certain what the current fittings are, there's a mass of lettering on them, none of which seems to make much sense. I rubbed down the galley outlet last year to bare metal and there did seem to be a tinge of pink that is giving me some concern. So far I have given them a hefty swipe with a hammer each year prior to relaunching just to make sure they were not about to fall off. Assuming I can do the work myself, we are not talking about an enormous amount of money as I only have one 1 1/2 and three 3/4 inch cocks to replace, the cockpit drains are moulded in and I have a saildrive so no engine intake cock. The Bronze from my local chandlery works out at about £290 and Marelon at about £220 which is not that much for peace of mind.

I have one further question; my current toilet intake has a tear shaped slotted strainer type skin fitting, this is not available in the Marelon. Do others have plain toilet intakes or is the strainer worth having?

Finally I would still be grateful for experiences with the Marelon products.
Click to expand...

You do not need bronze. As Vyv suggested DZR are fine and are half the price of bronze. You do not say what your current valves are. If they are Blakes then you can overhaul them. If ball valves the easiest way to replace is to grind off the outer flange of the skin fitting and replace the whole lot with new. However if they are DZR it is unlikely they have corroded. Failure is usually seizing or handles corroding. No need to use Marelon or similar in a GRP boat.
They are popular in the US and down under where DZR is not available. Only big advantage is in steel hulls. You may also find they are not direct replacements for metal valves as the bodies are larger. No need for strainers on skin fittings.
 
The current ones are ball valves, next time I go down I will try and make some sense of the lettering, but as I said, one at least has a touch of pinkness in the skin fitting.
 
I fitted reinforced nylon Seacocks assemblies from Trudesign last year. Much cheaper than either Marelon or DZR and very much easier to operate than the original Brass assemblies.
It is worth noting that after removal I cut up the original Brass assemblies and they seemed sound although the Seacocks had become very stiff.

John
 
I have an Oceanranger (1994) and before that a Renown (both Westerlys). On both loo intakes there is/was a hull mounted strainer and they haven't given me any problems. On the Renown which was 40 years old when I sold it, it still had the original (Blakes) seacocks and they were fine. On the Oceanranger, this autumn I changed the loo output seacock (1 1/4") because the valve was sealed with crud. It was a lever valve type. I replaced like with like. All the other seacocks are lever valve type and are fine.
The markings on the one I took off, which I have in my sticky mitt, say on one side :- 32 and i and on the other side:- 1 1/4 and ITALY. There's nothing else. Hope it helps
Have no experience of Marelon.
Mike
 
JFowler said:
I fitted reinforced nylon Seacocks assemblies from Trudesign last year. Much cheaper than either Marelon or DZR and very much easier to operate than the original Brass assemblies.
It is worth noting that after removal I cut up the original Brass assemblies and they seemed sound although the Seacocks had become very stiff.

John
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Not the case if you buy in the UK where they are priced at a similar level to Marelon which is substantially more expensive than DZR.
 
I replaced all my seacocks and skin fittings last summer with bronze ones, and was looking at Marelon but didn't go with them as they are physically bigger and this was going to cause me issues with some of the smaller ones that have a tight location.

Also remember the exhaust skin fitting - I forgot about this until the last moment. Probably different on your boat, but on my boat it is semi submerged and was a skin fitting like the others, and proved to have been leaking slightly when it was replaced.

I had strainers but removed them and didn't replace them: my experience is that they can grow barnacles inside and this makes them very hard to clear, especially when in the water. If you have a decent filter, that should catch anything that would be caught by a strainer, and at least you can pull the hose of and stuff a rod down the skin fitting to clear any obstructions.
 
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I have recently bought 2 Tru Design marelon type (reinforced nylon?) combined seacocks/skin fittings from Lee Sanitation. Very pleased with them (though only time will tell). I chose these over metal fittings as they were (i) more compact for a confined space, and less height/leverage reducing likelihood of accidental stress on hull; and (ii) bronze fittings were v. expensive and i was uncertain about the quality/life of other metals.
 
Dear Vyv

Spoke to a guy on the ASAP stand at the LBS. He was, I must admit, not a particularly impressive individual, but he quoted the life of the new CR sea cocks as four to five years!

Take Care

Rick
 
richardbrennan said:
...... I have one further question; my current toilet intake has a tear shaped slotted strainer type skin fitting, ...... or is the strainer worth having .....
Click to expand...

My loos have strainers on the inlet. Pain in the butt with barnacles inside and pricking the strainer holes post antifouling. I don't see the benefit of them in the waters that I sail in, perhaps if there was a lot of weed about they may be useful.
 
richardbrennan said:
Dear Vyv

Spoke to a guy on the ASAP stand at the LBS. He was, I must admit, not a particularly impressive individual, but he quoted the life of the new CR sea cocks as four to five years!

Take Care

Rick
Click to expand...

Not at all sure of his reasoning. DZR is well proven to last for a very long time. My Blakes seacocks, 3/4 and 1.5 inch, are almost certainly DZR ones, now approaching 30 years old with no visible corrosion. There is evidence that the ball and stem in some DZR and bronze valves are (plated) brass but even these seem to make it for more than 4-5 years. I'm going on Friday and will make a point of speaking to them/him.
 
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