Trintella Yacht with a deep bilge should I fill it with foam?

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WestCorkTrintella

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I want advice on whether I should fill my deep bilge with some sort foam or other product so that it is not so deep. This would obviously have to be water proof.

I want to know the pro's and cons of doing this, any advice would be helpful.

I have a 29 ft Trintella, it has a deep bilge all the way down into the keel.

The the prop shaft, gear box and engine sit above it as such access is not easy.

There are countless tools lost into it which require great skill to retrieve.

Thanks in Advance

David
 
IMO
Filling with foam can be a dangerous business - closed cell foam is supposed to not absorb water but If it does it would be nightmare.
Can you just put some sort of grate over the bilge so things cannot fall quite so far
 
nickd said:
IMO
Filling with foam can be a dangerous business - closed cell foam is supposed to not absorb water but If it does it would be nightmare.
Can you just put some sort of grate over the bilge so things cannot fall quite so far
Click to expand...

+1, even if the foam remains impervious to water over time there is the danger that water will be trapped and held between the foam and the hull leading to problems. Hugo du Plessis's book warns against this very thing : http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fibreglass-...id=1428671632&sr=8-1&keywords=Hugo+du+Plessis

I'd do what Nickd suggests and try to put some fine stainless wire mesh over the top. Will also stop your bilge pump getting clogged...

Boo2
 
Our previous boat had a similar deep bilge. I wouldn't dream of filling it with foam, for all sorts of reasons. I did always intend to fix some fine plastic garden mesh over it, small enough to catch nuts and bolts as well as tools, but never got round to it before we sold the boat (of course as time went on and I got things fixed, I had less and less reason to be working with tools over the bilge). In the meantime, I carried a street-sweeper's litter-picking stick to extract dropped items :)

Pete
 
Get some skinny batteries, make a shelf at the appropriate height with a mesh below, hey presto! made good use of the space, put more lead below the waterline and made a bit of space where the old batteries were. ;-)
 
Buck Turgidson said:
Get some skinny batteries, make a shelf at the appropriate height with a mesh below, hey presto! made good use of the space, put more lead below the waterline and made a bit of space where the old batteries were. ;-)
Click to expand...

Not sure I would want batteries in the bilge. after all a bilge is for collecting bilge water (as well as tools and other bits of hardware).
 
As said above about not filling with foam.

Anyway deep bilges make excellent secondary wine storage areas!!!
 
WestCorkTrintella said:
I want advice on whether I should fill my deep bilge with some sort foam or other product so that it is not so deep. This would obviously have to be water proof.

I want to know the pro's and cons of doing this, any advice would be helpful.

I have a 29 ft Trintella, it has a deep bilge all the way down into the keel.

The the prop shaft, gear box and engine sit above it as such access is not easy.

There are countless tools lost into it which require great skill to retrieve.

Thanks in Advance

David
Click to expand...

No
the bilge was designed for a perfectly good reason (in addition to collecting tools ) nothing is ever lost if dropped in a boat .
When was she built. if OSY in 67/68 i might have had a hand in fitting her out
 
If you could dry it out and de grease it, then you could fill the bottom with poly resin?

Beautiful yachts those Trintela 29's.
 
I am selling a Trintella 29 at the moment on behalf of a friend.As it happens the deep bilge has been utilised for a water tank,leaving a small sump at the engine from which to pump.
 
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