Salt Water Plumbing Complete

After several misfires the sw plumbing design is now final and the system is installed. There are two thru hulls, a 3/4 inch aft that is dedicated to engine cooling water and a 1 1/2 inch located in the forward cabin that provides feed water for the water maker, air conditioner heat exchanger and wash down / fire hose service.  I  installed the 1 1/2 inch manifold because I had originally planned for a system that would flow through a manifold at a volume that would allow all three systems to run simaltaneously.  What was I thinking?  When would I possibly need to be making potable water while air conditioning the main cabin as I am fighting a fire? Clearly the seacock should have been 3/4 inch not 1 1/2 inch.  But it made more sense to install a reducer rather than pull the seacock, reglass the hull and buy another seacock.

The salt water supply flows from the seacock, through a 3/4 inch strainer and then to a 3/4 inch 3 position diverter valve.  This diverter valve is below the waterline and supplies the watermaker boost pump and another 3 way valve that provides supply water to wash down pump or the Clima air conditioner.  One thru hull, seacock and strainer serves the airconditioner, salt water washdown system and water maker.
There are three wash down hose outlets, one up forward on the bow for anchor wash down duty, one on the port quarter deck and another down below in the head.  The outlet in the head serves as a below deck fire water station and a source of flush water in the event there is a problem with the fresh water flush system.  The outlets are made by Newfound Metals and are designed so that a hose can be connected or disconnected with the system presuurized.

Change Orders

Change order no 420 (roughly): 
Scratch the sink in the head; there is no place to put it. As I drew it up, the bottom of the sink would be right on top of the air conditioner. I could move it to the starboard side countertop but that wipes out a bank of 3 drawers. In hindsight I didn’t need it anyway....the galley sink is only 5 feet away. So, we scratch the sink, which means we don't need the sink drain thru-hull. Now we have an extra sink and seacock.

However, the hot and cold water lines have already been pulled to that location and we need a solution to the air conditioner pan drain issue. Running it into the bilge is not a good option. The new plan is to install a hand held shower and build a small sump pan with pump. The A/C pan can drain into the shower sump.  A self-priming waste water pump will send shower gray water and AC water over the side at the transom.

Keeping the Water on the Outside

There will be 8 below the waterline thru hull penetrations for two cockpit drains, engine cooling water, a speed and water depth transducer, galley sink drain, head sink drain, raw water intake ( to a manifold serving 3 washdown stations, the watermaker, and the AC/Heater) and the head discharge. All of the thru hulls except the trnasducer will be protected by 1 1/2 inch Spartan flanged seacocks.

A hose and/or seacock valve failure at any of these points could sink the boat. A hull breach as a result of a collision or an open or broken hatch or port hole in heavy weather are also threats to the vessel buoyancy.  An effective bilge pump system might stem the flow of incoming water enough to buy time to effect repairs, send a mayday or launch a life raft.  Day in and day out the bilge pump system will be charged with keeping the interior of the boat dry by removing any accumulation of casual water (a golf term?) in the bilge.

The BCC bilge is deepest  ( and also narrowest) aft of the engine below the fuel tank. Further forward between the two water tanks the bilge is slightly shallower but accessible. With this in mind, Rose will be equipped with 3 bilge pumps, two electric submersibles and one manual diaphram pump.

The Rule 1100 is rated to 10 gallons per minute with 4 feet of head and will serve as the primary bilge pump. It's small enough to fit in the bottom of the bilge below the prop shaft and has an integral float switch and strainer.  A larger Rule Model 3700 will serve as the secondary high water pump and will be situated between the two water tanks about 6 inches off bottom.  The manual Whale Gusher 10 will be mounted on the lazerette side of the cockpit.  Each of the three pumps will have its own discharge line with an in-line non-return valve.

So, assuming the engine is running, batteries are fully charged and a fresh crew member is manning the Whale Gusher, all three pumps working together will be able to remove about 45 gallons per minute.   Finally, for cruising I will keep a spare Gusher with 6 feet of suction hose and a strum box, so if there's no power and manually pumping from the cockpit is not feasible........ pull the discharge hose off the Rule 3700 and connect it to this pump.

Heads Up

A Pittsburg entrepenuer has developed and now markets a fresh water toilet flushing device that taps into the boat's fresh water system to provide one gallon of pressure free potable water to your existing msp. The Freshflush system not only eliminates the odors associated with a salt water toilet flushing system but also the need for a dedicated raw water intake thru-hull, seacock and associated plumbing.  The Freshflush tank is 10 inches in diameter,13 inches tall and automatically refills after flushing.

The conversion from salt to fresh water for flushing is a permanent retrofit that allows one to use existing appliances and plumbing circuitry. But there is no switching back and forth from raw to pot water using a Y valve or any other manifold system.  It would just be a matter of time before a washed out valve turned the pot water tank to a salt water tank. 

The raw water thru hull and intake line that used to be dedicated to the head will now be available for watermaker feed, anchor chain washdown and a 3 valve fire main circuit.  The one raw water intake willl feed these plumbing circuits through a small Shurflow 3 valve manifold.  One of the three fire hose outlet valves will be located in the head compartment.  Should a fresh water conservation plan have to be effected as a result of water maker breakdown or other such, I will close the freshwater feed to the Freshflush and use the fire main hose to fill the toilet bowl as required.

Groco tested the system and reports that it works great even "heeling as much as 45 degrees". I am on the test boat heeling 45 degrees? Yes, you can look for me in the head.

All well and good for coastal and day sailing but what about the live aboard international cruisier? The water maker will be a dc powered EchoTec model 260  producing 13 gallons per hour pulling 38 amps at 12.5 volts. (Make your water while you charge your batteries!)  Will be interesting to see how actual performance stacks up against advertised.

Head Plumbing

The plumbing circuit for the head will be straight forward with piping runs and valving kept to a minimum. I will sketch the plumbing circuits before I start buying the materials but first I will describe the system one component and/or line at a time.

The holding tank will have a 12 gallon capacity and will be installed on the port side of the sail locker high up on the hull and as far forward as possible. The top of the tank will be just below the main deck but with enough space to accomodate PVC fittings for pump out, inlet and two vent  lines. The bottom of the side hull tank will be above the waterline thereby satisfying the anti-siphon requirement on the discharge side. The two vent lines will be located on opposite ends of the tank and vent to the outside on port and starboard sides.

Head

After looking at various options I have decided on the Lavac head. The bowel is evacuated by the vacum generated by the Henderson manual bilge pump that mounts separately on a bulkhead; there are no other moving parts. Before flushing the toilet, the lid, which has a rubber seal under it, is lowered. By giving about 10 good strokes on the pump, a vacuum is created within the bowl and rinse water is simultaneously drawn in at the top of the bowl. To prevent any chance of back-siphoning raise the toilet so that its rim is above the boat's waterline.

The 1.5 inch discharge line will have an electric discharge pump to evacuate the holding tank overboard when offshore. This line must have a vented loop to prevent back siphoning. The pump out line will be a separate line independent from the overboard discharge line. The schematic on the Lavac website also shows a ¾ inch hose bib rinse out line for the holding tank. Lavac

By using the same Henderson model for the cockpit mounted bilge pump one spare rebuild kit can service either one.