My boat (#337) has a shelf bracket mounted in the quarterberth, and there is a Jabsco diaphragm pump there. The valves in it get clogged easily with any and all debris that gets to the bilge, and it has a pretty pathetic GPM rating. It is manually activated by the electrical panel; there is no switch in the bilge.

I want to replace it, likely with a centrifugal pump in the bilge. I think that means replacing the tubing, too.

I imagine that the height of the Jabsco in the quarterberth creates a natural siphon break. When I replace it, must I route the hose up in a loop to near the deck, and then back down? Should I buy a siphon break and put it at the top of the loop? Or is all this unnecessary? (I understand that centrifugal pumps lose efficiency with rise, so I don't want to add too much, but then again I don't want my boat flooding and sinking, either!)

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance,

Ryan Pierce
Tesara, #337

i left the manual pump alone.. and added a electric one with a switch over the winter.

there are a couple problems u will run into
room for the bilge pump is one of them ..lol

where to put the exhaust line ? I ended up routing it forward inside the square which u can open on the port side of the mast... from there I traversed the cabin to the starboard side, into the cabin, there I cut a hole into the anchor locker, where the water will go, and run out of the anchor locker drain hole. I didnt want to cut any more holes into the boat...

other possibility is to drain it into the sink, but I didnt want to add a one way valve to the bilge pump either....

thor

I added an electric pump to the bilge, but routed the tubing into the port settee, then into the galley cabinet. It went all the way to the top of the cabinet along side of the sink, then down to a tee in the sink drain line. The sink drain (as long as it is not plugged) acts as a siphon break, and the loop above the bottom of the sink made a check valve unnecessary. The little electric bilge pumps and float switches have limited lifespans, and I got sick of buying new ones and just went back to using the hand pump in the cockpit after a few years.

That's odd.... I thought it was standard that there would be two bilge pump discharges in the transom, one for the Whale Gusher and one for an electric pump.

Anyway, seeing as the electric pump discharge is next to the Whale Gusher discharge, does this mean I have to run a loop up the inside of that locker and possibly put a siphon break at the top?