Deep down in the darkest recesses of any boat lies a place that few dare to venture. It's an unforgiving space, full of rancid smells, foul gunge and, all too often associated with things which, at best, haven’t been operating as should well be the case. Anyone who finds themselves here is visiting the boat's bilges.
I had reason to poke around here over the past few days since the bilge pump, which is necessary for pumping out water that habitually accumulates here, wasn’t working properly. If there is a weakness in the Deben Lugger design it is the fact that much of the rainwater doesn’t run off through the scuppers, and finds its way into the bilge. A decent rainstorm, whilst on the mooring, will lead to a significant accumulation of water which, if left unchecked, could eventually lead to the hull being submerged.
Following this week's storms, Daisy IV found herself many litres of water in the bilges, and reaching over the floorboards. A subsequent inspection of the hull revealed a Rule bilge pump connected to a Rule-a-matic float valve. Previously this has only been used in its 'manual' mode of operation, since the thing wouldn’t switch off once the hull was emptied, as it is intended to do.
The problem seems to be with the float valve which was incorrectly installed at a level which was little higher than the bilge pump, so that the water level could never quite reach the depth required for the float valve to sit sufficiently low to switch off the electricity supply.
Eventually I managed to remove the float valve, and have now added a centimetre of supporting wood so that it sits high enough to operate as intended. So, we shall await with interest the outcomes of the next deluge…
Following this piece of maintenance, it seemed the only sensible thing to go for a little sail. The tide was in its early ebb, so it was good to beat upstream against a F3 NWW breeze, before a run downstream as the wind increased to F4.
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| 9.4nm |
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