Shower pump as auxiliary bilge pump?

My shower pump is rated at 2.9 litres per minute. For me, it's not worth the effort.

However, the pump out from the holding tank is a fair bit quicker, and the macerator on the electric heads is also quite powerful. Perhaps a secondary feed to the heads bowl from the bilges could work, straight overboard through the heads outlet.
 
FullCircle said:
However, the pump out from the holding tank is a fair bit quicker, and the macerator on the electric heads is also quite powerful. Perhaps a secondary feed to the heads bowl from the bilges could work, straight overboard through the heads outlet.
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Kindred Spirit came with the heads pump rigged as secondary bilge pump as you describe - but it was a standard Jabsco manual :). Fairly sure that one wasn't worth it, but if your electric heads has a decent rate then why not.

In the one and only flooding I've found myself in, the water was above the toilet bowl anyway so there wouldn't have even been a need for the plumbing, had we had an electric head - just press the button and start flushing!

Pete
 
The main reason for needing a second bilge pump might actually be the first one getting clogged or failing, rather than extra capacity.
I did look at making an impeller shower pump convertible to deck wash once.

If you are seriously concerned that you need high pumping capacity, a 230v submersible pump might appeal.
Obviously you'd need an inverter you believed would keep working.
 
You can get very good pumps that run off the engine and are clutched but they are a bit expensive and require heavy duty hose otherwise it will simply collapse under the pressure. However, at the end of the day the priority remains with finding the leak and sealing it. Unless you have rammed an iceberg at speed it will likely be a through-hull and should be easy to stem the flow. The problem is that if you have no way to detect a leak you will only notice once the water is above the cabin sole. This means that the leak itself may be submerged and thus will be very hard to find. It also means that you have very little time before your electrics give out. Sods law says that it will be night time so you will quickly find yourself wading around, in the dark, trying to remember where all your seacocks are. If you really want to avoid sinking I would suggest the following;

1)Prevention; Make sure your through-hulls are up to the job and that the hoses are well attached.
2)Detection; Make sure that you have a way to detect a leak as early as possible. I am working on a zoned detection system that will tell me at what section of the boat the leak started.
3)Alleviation; Have a plan, know where the leaks are likely to come from and have suitable kit to stop them (wooden bungs etc). Make sure you have easy access to any through-hull including rudder stock and prop shaft.
4)Bilge pumps; If you want to get serious about pumping then get an engine driven high capacity pump. A normal bilge pump is NOT for buying time when sinking. It is for getting small amounts of water out of the bilges. Ignore it.

If you are really serious then there are watertight bulkheads, buoyancy chambers, engine snorkels, etc to think about. I would only consider wiring up complex additional bilge pumps as a backup to the standard bilge pumps. i.e. to use once the leak is sealed to remove the water.
 
I helped a friend install a Whale Gulper in his motor boat last weekend. It's a nicely made thing, but only pumps a maximum of 14 litres per minute, which I presume is at zero head. Fine for his purpose - it's a 24' open boat and he needs to get rainwater out - but nowhere near any significant leak rate.

My 1GM10's puny little pump takes a couple of minutes at speed to empty a 2 gallon bucket of antifreeze mix when I lay it up. A frightened man with an egg cup could beat that, almost.
 
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