That’s a lot of water!
I’m going to go out on a limb here and perhaps tempt fate by saying that this year’s rainy season wasn’t all that, at least not in the Eastern Caribbean that is*. Just as the last dry season wasn’t the big drought that previous years have burdened the Caribbean with, we have not had all that much rain this year, relatively speaking. Of course, there are days like yesterday.
On a day when we had scheduled to clean the boat top to bottom, it rained. All day. And night. A lot. In fact, it barely stopped. From a boat -rinsing point of view, that’s not all that bad. It also made it a lot cooler to work. The wind-driven chop in the bay didn’t make the job of compounding and waxing the hulls any easier but you can’t have everything, right?
As we lay in bed last night, listening to the rain which never let up, I knew that the dinghy was filling with water as it sat in the davits. Yes, I could have pulled the drain plug out but it’s really tight in this tender and a bit of a PITA to do. So, instead, I waited for a lull in the rain to go and pump it out. That lull never came.
What was the first thing I did this morning? Check to see how much water had accumulated in the dinghy. There was so much water in it that I had to call Rebecca to come and look at it before pumping it out. Amazing. I can only imagine how much weight that water added to the tender. Good thing we have our nicely reinforced davits!
Oh, I mentioned pumping the water out. A nice perk that this dinghy has is an electric bilge pump. Evacuating the water required only the flip of a switch, no sweat required. 🙂
Pumping the water out of the tender as it sits in the davits.
*I have more to say on this subject but I’ll wait for maybe another month before posting it, just in case.
Our new-to-us tender also came with a bilge pump, but ours is also wired to come on automatically. You might add a float switch to yours if you are concerned about the weight on the davits.
When we have a good storm, the pump will run maybe every ten minutes or so for about ten seconds. First time it happened we jumped up — the water cascading onto the metal swim step from ten feet up on the boat deck made a distinctive sound.
Because the tender was designed from the factory with the bilge pump, the garboard drain plug is not all that easy to remove. Also, I think the consequences of accidentally splashing the tender without the plug are greater than with our older “open” model.
The one downside to the automatic pump is that we sometimes have to pull-start the engine if there has been a lot of rain between uses.
-Sean
Yes, a float switch might be good although I am currently battling with other float switches on the boat so I’m a bit reluctant to install one.
No float switch for the bilge pump?? That’s a inexpensive addition… I’ve also seen one way Garber/Drain plugs– They let the water out but not in…
Not familiar with those (one way plugs).
I know this sound stupid and lazy, but about 3% of my reasoning for extending our PDQ was making it easier to reach the plug. Just pitiful.
🙂
Needs a float switch! 🙂
Perhaps.