Self draining cockpits. Who needs ‘em?

[Blueboatman]

I think Blake and Whistock were very wise and made for a stronger structure and integrity too ?

My last boat had a dump drain at the cockpit rear . I used to keep the life raft in front of it else one might swish stuff away inadvertently I supposed..
Very very occasionally in a wallowing sea outside a harbour entrance with a cockpit full of people a splash of water would come UP the dump drain -ooer!

My old Corribee cockpit, at water level in normal trim , turned into a very nice bath/paddling pool with the drains closed and a few litres added ..
On that one I put plywood across for a transatlantic and shut the drains . There were now no through hulls to worry about , which was nice . Every few days @sea I would open the drains for a few minutes to remove the couple of litres that found its way past the ply cover board in the trades

 

[Kukri]

I think Blake and Whistock were very wise and made for a stronger structure and integrity too ?

My last boat had a dump drain at the cockpit rear . I used to keep the life raft in front of it else one might swish stuff away inadvertently I supposed..
Very very occasionally in a wallowing sea outside a harbour entrance with a cockpit full of people a splash of water would come UP the dump drain -ooer!

My old Corribee cockpit, at water level in normal trim , turned into a very nice bath/paddling pool with the drains closed and a few litres added ..
On that one I put plywood across for a transatlantic and shut the drains . There were now no through hulls to worry about , which was nice . Every few days @sea I would open the drains for a few minutes to remove the couple of litres that found its way past the ply cover board in the trades

Corribee… transatlantic … chapeau!???

 

[Gary Fox]

.....On that one I put plywood across for a transatlantic and shut the drains . There were now no through hulls to worry about , which was nice ....

This is the bit I don't get. Not personally criticising you or Kukri.

Why would a through hull be something to 'worry about'?
They are a strong bronze or DZR fitting, strongly fastened and well caulked, with a reinforced hose clamped on by twin stainless hose clips.
If you are worried, something is wrong. If you don't trust the through hulls or hoses, it is a straightforward DIY task to renew them.
I have done all Marihøna's and they are the least of my worries. (ASAP love me having spent nearly a grand over the years..)
Yes, we all know cocks need exercising to avoid stiffness issues..(ooh err missus)..that's a seperate discussion.

So to sum up, these through--hull concerns sound like superstitions. Which we all have to some extent anyway, but being worried about harmless issues is a waste of worry IMHO..

 

[Blueboatman]

Oh okay
In itself no problem , they are sound as when you replaced them last
But then there’s the hoses , the stuff leaning against the hoses , the knock down stuff shifting possibility , the niggling possibility of that .
That’s it ?
And . When you check the bilge each morning as you might chosen to do on passage and the sponge is damp well there’s an indicator of a deck or other leak somewhere . But you know it’s not a through hull or sink or prop shaft aperture/seal or a loo because , they don’t exist or are shut off
Just keeping it simples and kinda self-checking
( or obsessively over prepared?)
Got away with it tho

 

[Kukri]

Ask Pete Thomas, whose very lovely and perfectly rebuilt (by him) smack “Transcur” sank on her mooring at Pin Mill when the wash of a passing ship rolled his toolbox off a shelf and onto a nice new skin fitting - which fractured.

 

[Blueboatman]

Ask Pete Thomas, whose very lovely and perfectly rebuilt (by him) smack “Transcur” sank on her mooring at Pin Mill when the wash of a passing ship rolled his toolbox off a shelf and onto a nice new skin fitting - which fractured.

Crikey ! ?
Salutary but awful

 

[Gary Fox]

Ask Pete Thomas, whose very lovely and perfectly rebuilt (by him) smack “Transcur” sank on her mooring at Pin Mill when the wash of a passing ship rolled his toolbox off a shelf and onto a nice new skin fitting - which fractured.

As the seacock was broken off by a falling toolbox, closing it would not have helped...

 

[Sandy]

Ask Pete Thomas, whose very lovely and perfectly rebuilt (by him) smack “Transcur” sank on her mooring at Pin Mill when the wash of a passing ship rolled his toolbox off a shelf and onto a nice new skin fitting - which fractured.

Why was his toolbox on a shelf? The only place for that is in a locker. All about mitigating risk.

 

[Gary Fox]

My new DZR seacocks are installed strongly enough to handle being kicked etc, but my paddlewheel fitting is plastic, and nothing heavier than clothes and quilts is allowed to be stored near it. Hoping to find a bronze transducer to rectiify the issue.

 

[Sandy]

My new DZR seacocks are installed strongly enough to handle being kicked etc, but my paddlewheel fitting is plastic, and nothing heavier than clothes and quilts is allowed to be stored near it. Hoping to find a bronze transducer to rectiify the issue.

Box the paddlewheel in. A sewage pipe glassed in comes to mind.

 

[Kukri]

Why was his toolbox on a shelf? The only place for that is in a locker. All about mitigating risk.

I wish I were perfect.

I’ve known Pete for forty years and he’s been more competent than I in a boat for the whole of that time.

 

[Gary Fox]

Box the paddlewheel in. A sewage pipe glassed in comes to mind.

That is already on my list of Things to Do! Although it would be a wooden box, I can't ' glass in ' anything to my pitch-pine planks...

 

[Robert Wilson]

re your pic in post #39:
Is that the Ramsholt Pub, on the way up to Ipswich?

 

[Stemar]

Jissel's cockpit drain seacocks were seized solid when I bought her. Attempts to loosen them just broke the handles off, so they stayed open, with suitable bungs tied to them. The engine seacock stayed open permanently because I can guarantee I'll forget it at some point, but was exercised every few months, and serviced annually, as were the toilet seacocks, which were the only ones that stayed closed on the mooring and, after finding a couple of inches of water in the saloon after a hard beat on starboard tack, at sea.

Jazzcat's seacocks move, but reluctantly, so they're on my list of things to service, but they're ball valves, so I'm not sure what I can do - maybe a bit of PTFE spray into each one, then work them several times? I dodn't know if the balls are metal or plastic. The cockpit drains are simply holes in the floor with elbows under them so they face aft, but if water starts coming in, I'll have far more important things to worry about, like getting off a mayday!

 

[Kukri]

re your pic in post #39:
Is that the Ramsholt Pub, on the way up to Ipswich?

Upper picture is Methersgate Reach on the Deben. lower picture is indeed the Orwell on the way to Ipswich and it’s the farmhouse opposite the RHYC - which does look like the Ramsholt Arms, but because both the Vernons and the Brokes - the two Naval dynasties who between them owned the village of Nacton - were Opposed to The Demon Drink, there has never been a pub in Nacton!

(Admiral Vernon was the man who watered down the men’s rum to produce grog).

 

[Gary Fox]

Upper picture is Methersgate Reach on the Deben. lower picture is indeed the Orwell on the way to Ipswich and it’s the farmhouse opposite the RHYC - which does look like the Ramsholt Arms, but because both the Vernons and the Brokes - the two Naval dynasties who between them owned the village of Nacton - were Opposed to The Demon Drink, there has never been a pub in Nacton!

(Admiral Vernon was the man who watered down the men’s rum to produce grog).

Thanks, a good snippet of history. There's a nice pub a mile down the road though...

 

[Buck Turgidson]

I forgot the engine seacock once on a quick trip to the fuel dock. Of course the alarm came on at the most in opportune moment but apart from wounded pride no damage done. I now have a post it note with cock written on it to remind me ??

 

[Sandy]

I wish I were perfect.

I’ve known Pete for forty years and he’s been more competent than I in a boat for the whole of that time.

We all do. My late father was a engineer in the merchant navy. Over the years he taught me many tricks and I never saw him working with his tool bag off the deck or garage floor.

After he died I used his tool bag for another 20 years until it finally fell apart with use. Sadly, his pride and joy a substantial socket set that was salvaged off a ship at the bottom of the Suez Canal in the late 1950's are imperial and the world I live in is totally metric apart from nautical stuff.

 

[Wing Mark]

I've sailed on a few boats without self draining cockpits.
Mostly racing 'dayboats' like XOD and Etchells, where pumping can be very good exercise.
But also a SCOD, 1950s (?) wooden cruiser-racer. With rainwater heading for the bilges, cockpit covers become important and 'ample' ventilation is crucial to avoid the boat and everything in it smelling terrible.
Some boats were more at home in the days of a season from April to September followed by a winter in a shed?
But I don't recall the SCOD ever taking on scary amounts of water while racing? Not much more than I've put 'downstairs' in a Sonata . Although that was going a lot quicker at the time!

These days, with cheap electric pumps, we could consider a cockpit that didn't actually drain to the sea, but got pumped out?
But even most racing dinghies self drain these days?
Modern hull shape , flattish sections at the blunt end, it's not hard to make it self drain?

 

[anoccasionalyachtsman]

I've sailed on a few boats without self draining cockpits.
Mostly racing 'dayboats' like XOD and Etchells, where pumping can be very good exercise.
But also a SCOD, 1950s (?) wooden cruiser-racer. With rainwater heading for the bilges, cockpit covers become important and 'ample' ventilation is crucial to avoid the boat and everything in it smelling terrible.
Some boats were more at home in the days of a season from April to September followed by a winter in a shed?
But I don't recall the SCOD ever taking on scary amounts of water while racing? Not much more than I've put 'downstairs' in a Sonata . Although that was going a lot quicker at the time!

These days, with cheap electric pumps, we could consider a cockpit that didn't actually drain to the sea, but got pumped out?
But even most racing dinghies self drain these days?
Modern hull shape , flattish sections at the blunt end, it's not hard to make it self drain?

Etchells and XODs have been using using 'leccy pumps for a while - it's a token gesture to human rights legislation.