Brien, As a fellow submariner, I sympathize about water in the people tank. During off-season, I get a small amount in my bilge and have taken a few steps to limit this. The first thing is to put something in the luff track to divert/stop the down the mast. When winterizing the boat, I pump/vacuum all water out of the bilge, add some RV anti-freeze, run the bilge pump until pink comes out the discharge, pull the fuses to the switch and move the float switch as far up as possible. I then make sure there is a couple of gallon of anti-freeze in the bilge. Periodically, when I check the boat, if there is some additional liquid in the bilge, I pump it with a hand pump so as not to "de-winterize' the bilge pump.
My preference is to keep the bilge bone dry but this is not possible without de-watering periodically. As a nuke, I remember having chloride stress corrosion and stainless steel drilled into my head. Straight Board and Dry Bilges, Ron Ron Ricci S/V Patriot C&C 37+ Bristol, RI [email protected] -----Original Message----- From: CnC-List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Brien Sadler via CnC-List Sent: Monday, February 12, 2018 4:39 PM To: [email protected] Cc: Brien Sadler Subject: Re: Stus-List Mast boot and keel bolts The only reason I worry about the mast leak is water in the bilge in the winter. It’s probably from being a submariner for close to 20 years, that in my mind water in the bilge is a big “No No”. I don’t want it turning to ice and causing problems. I have a bottle that catches most of the water that drips to the mast step, but when we have a couple of deluge days like we had yesterday in CT the bottle over flows into the bilge. I poured a little anti-freeze in the bilge at the beginning of the season to keep any over flow from freezing, and that worked pretty well. Since it was warm out today I vacuumed everything out and it’s dry but who knows in the next 2-3 months how many more 3-4 inches of rain days we’re going to have. Any other suggestions on rain water in the bilge and how to deal with it in the winter would be great. Also, I think I’m going to leave the keel bolts just like they are and inspect on a regular basis. They seem to be fine and the previous owners left them that way and they seemed to know what they were doing. So I’ll just keep an eye on it. Thanks again. Brien Sent from my iPad _______________________________________________ Thanks everyone for supporting this list with your contributions. Each and every one is greatly appreciated. If you want to support the list - use PayPal to send contribution -- https://www.paypal.me/stumurray _______________________________________________ Thanks everyone for supporting this list with your contributions. Each and every one is greatly appreciated. If you want to support the list - use PayPal to send contribution -- https://www.paypal.me/stumurray
