Bilge Rat Installs Second Bilge Pump - Check

New secondary bilge pump

s/v Honey Ryder only has ONE bilge pump.  Only O-N-E.  It's basically a combo bilge/shower sump pump.  It's good but it's only one.  When your home is floating, it's good to have more than one bilge pump.  There is an old saying "nothing pumps like a scared sailor with a bucket and water up to his/her knees" - or something close to that.  While that may be true, it's stupid.  We have the standard emergency access where we can hand pump from the cockpit (what is with the short handles on those!).  We also have a second backup emergency bilge pump mounted on the underside of one of our hatch boards.  Thank you Denny King for giving us that one.  That is our scared sailor bilge pump.  If all else fails, we will stand on that hatch board, drop a hose into the bilge and one overboard and pump for our lives.

Primary sump / bilge pump

However.... 
We felt it was a MUST to install a secondary, backup bilge pump prior to heading out officially.  Plus my good friend and world sailor Floy absolutely forbid us from leaving the dock without one. 

Bilge Rat drilling the holes in the hanging locker for the hose

Tom aka Bilge Rat installed our second bilge pump this week.  He made a mounting plate out of scrap aluminum we got from marine electronics wizard Lester.  Thank you Lester.  He screwed it to the mast down in our bilge.

Bilge Rat designed and built this mounting

The hose was run to the starboard side of the boat up through the hanging locker in our stateroom.  *Standard Caliber layout is a vanity here but many owners have this converted to a hanging locker like ours.

Hose feed up through hanging locker

Secondary bilge pump hose run out to starboard side of boat - it's the black and clear hose

The thru hull for the secondary bilge pump is 1 1/8" and approx. 4 1/2 inches below our toe rail on the starboard side.   Thanks to Caliber Tim for the idea on routing the second bilge as well as the details and pics of his installation.

New hole for thru hull - who doesn't love drilling holes in their boat!

 

Hull thickness

There is a big debate in the boating world over looped vs check valve.  We are not going to debate it here.  Our primary bilge pump has a check valve built in because it's a diaphragm pump.  Tom included an awesome loop in the installation of this second pump so we do not have a check valve on it. 

Loop-Dee-Loop

Not a big fan of float switches.  It seems like ours was always getting hung up and thus not working.  We plan to install The Ultimate Bilge Pump switch to take care of that.  I guess we will sell the spare float switches on ebay or use them as giveaways to guests that stay onboard.

Secondary bilge pump mounted against the mast

 Secondary, backup bilge pump complete, check and check.