the finest set of home made emergency bungs ever seen

dylanwinter

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Buckingham
www.keepturningleft.co.uk
With every old boat I buy I seem to acquire yet another set of these wooden bungs

home made this time and fantastically comprehensive

I still cannot image a moment when a sponge wrapped doggy bag would not stem the flow from any gushing perfectly round orifice

and the sponge wrapped doggy bag will be much better for any gushing hole that is not perfectly round

SANY0006-bungs.jpg
 
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A marvelous collection of bungs you have there Dylan!

Forget the boat though and take them straight to the Tate.

All you need is a good title.
 
Are you sure they're home-made? I inherited a set just like them on Ariam, and as a charter boat with a very hands-off owner they will undoubtedly have come straight from the chandlery shelf.

Pete
 
...a wooden bung attached to it...

A sensible precaution that follows a requirement for ISAF racing. Attaching them to the fitting ensures that a bung of the correct shape is to hand in an emergency. Personally I prefer rubber bungs attached via a braided line. I also have some large diameter ones made in silicone... the bit that always solidifies when a cartridge is not fully used. Bungs in a plastic bag inside a drawer 'somewhere' are as much use as a life-jacket that is hung up neatly inside a locker.
 
A sensible precaution that follows a requirement for ISAF racing. Attaching them to the fitting ensures that a bung of the correct shape is to hand in an emergency. Personally I prefer rubber bungs attached via a braided line. I also have some large diameter ones made in silicone... the bit that always solidifies when a cartridge is not fully used. Bungs in a plastic bag inside a drawer 'somewhere' are as much use as a life-jacket that is hung up neatly inside a locker.

I always know where the bin bags are kept along with a small herd of assorted plastic bags that slowly breed there

D
 
still useless though in my opinion
If they are softwood they aren't useless. One of the Navy's battle damage fixes in metal ships is softwood wedges. They are hammered into the holes in the hull, they swell, and the water stops coming in. If you knock a softwood plug into the remains of a bronze skin fitting where a seacock has snapped off you will stop the leak or reduce it to a trickle.
 
While I'm not ( quite ) knocking the idea, is there anyone out there who has actually used such bungs in anger?

I suspect that, like lots of 'last century' so-called safety equipment we all have, the likelihood of anyone actually using them effectively is vanishingly small.

Edit: some of the OP's littler bungs seem calibrated for '16-bore, 5.56, and 7.62 Standard NATO'.
Who else sails in the SBS Training Range off Poole...?
 
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While I'm not ( quite ) knocking the idea, is there anyone out there who has actually used such bungs in anger?

I suspect that, like lots of 'last century' so-called safety equipment we all have, the likelihood of anyone actually using them effectively is vanishingly small.

Edit: some of the OP's littler bungs seem calibrated for '16-bore, 5.56, and 7.62 Standard NATO'.
Who else sails in the SBS Training Range off Poole...?

I used one once to open up some new loo hose enough to get it onto a spigot, still had to stick it in hot water as well though. Last boat had double clamped hoses on all through hulls plus appropriate sized bungs taped on each, as a requirement for the AZAB 2 up.
 
While I'm not ( quite ) knocking the idea, is there anyone out there who has actually used such bungs in anger?

I suspect that, like lots of 'last century' so-called safety equipment we all have, the likelihood of anyone actually using them effectively is vanishingly small.

Edit: some of the OP's littler bungs seem calibrated for '16-bore, 5.56, and 7.62 Standard NATO'.
Who else sails in the SBS Training Range off Poole...?

A local legend the Gulf Island Ferry went around for almost a month with a broom stick through a hole in the hull. Until there was a space available in a dry dock.
 
, is there anyone out there who has actually used such bungs in anger?

Well, maybe not quite "in anger" but I did use one to stop a skin fitting while I prepared the replacement ball-valve for the engine cooling water. It was the only way that I could do it afloat because on the outside there was a grill.

the likelihood of anyone actually using them effectively is vanishingly small.

The same thing may be said about liferafts; we carry them... in the hope that we never need to use them!
 
I suspect that, like lots of 'last century' so-called safety equipment we all have, the likelihood of anyone actually using them effectively is vanishingly small.

+1. It does not seem sensible to have something which needs to be physically hammered into a hole, and which anyway relies on that hole being nice and round, rather than something which can just be squidged in (technical term).

To swing a hammer at my toilet seacocks I would need to remove the toilet plinth, which is held in place my six big screws.
 
Has anyone ever tried squiding something in. When there is a head of water(pressure) on the other side.

It might not be so easy. the idea with a soft wood bung is it will conform to an odd shape. when tapered and forced.
 
While I'm not ( quite ) knocking the idea, is there anyone out there who has actually used such bungs in anger?

I've used them often for plugging fuel, water, and toilet hoses when removed from their fittings for some kind of work, so worth having for that reason alone. Not personally used one for a hole in the hull, but I've been on a boat where someone else did. Log transducer came apart somehow, and filled the boat to bunk level before we on deck realised.

Has anyone ever tried squiding something in. When there is a head of water(pressure) on the other side.

Well, I shove my log back in the hole after taking it out for cleaning, and that certainly doesn't require brute force. We're not talking about submarine water-pressure here, nor even two decks down on a destroyer. Most yacht skin fittings are probably within about two feet of the surface.

Pete
 
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