KSmith
08-17-2011, 07:56 AM
Has anyone upgraded their bilge pump or added a second bilge pump?
We were in Tennessee in an area that got pretty congested, so ended up pulling the dreaded inflatables. I have a 3 person banana we break out on rare occassions so we had that out with 3 teenagers riding it trying to throw off the others.
Anyway, they all wrestled themselves off the banana and I slowed down and turned to go back and pick them up. There was one guy in the bow in front of me which blocked part of my field of vision, we were almost back to our riders when the wakes from all these boats running around in circles pulling tubers converged in front of me and built into these giant rollers, which by the time I noticed the waves building we were taking two over the bow... The first one wasn't so bad but it pulled the bow lower and the second was a whopper.
I ended up with standing water half way up to my knees, so I hit the bilge switch and the switch to drain my center ballast and pulled out the center drain access panel and allowed the water to go into the bilge. All told once the water drained into the bilge the water in the bilge was only an inch from the floor bottom. Not sure what that works out to in gallons but when the water was gushing through the walkway and rushing over the top of the windshield it seemed like a lot ;-) I was soaked completely, from the hat on down, most others ended up less soaked, well except for the guy that was riding in the bow :-)
Anyway while the bilge pumped worked and eventually the majority of the water pumped out I was thinking it would have been nice if it had been able to pump out the water faster. If we'd taken a third over the bow we might have been done for.
So all you wild and crazy Moomba owners, any ideas on the best way to install a big honkin bilge pump, something with far greater GPH capability than this stock pump? I'm thinking something that could empty a full bilge in a minute maybe?? BTW what is the stock bilge rated at? I haven't looked at the pump in detail.
We were in Tennessee in an area that got pretty congested, so ended up pulling the dreaded inflatables. I have a 3 person banana we break out on rare occassions so we had that out with 3 teenagers riding it trying to throw off the others.
Anyway, they all wrestled themselves off the banana and I slowed down and turned to go back and pick them up. There was one guy in the bow in front of me which blocked part of my field of vision, we were almost back to our riders when the wakes from all these boats running around in circles pulling tubers converged in front of me and built into these giant rollers, which by the time I noticed the waves building we were taking two over the bow... The first one wasn't so bad but it pulled the bow lower and the second was a whopper.
I ended up with standing water half way up to my knees, so I hit the bilge switch and the switch to drain my center ballast and pulled out the center drain access panel and allowed the water to go into the bilge. All told once the water drained into the bilge the water in the bilge was only an inch from the floor bottom. Not sure what that works out to in gallons but when the water was gushing through the walkway and rushing over the top of the windshield it seemed like a lot ;-) I was soaked completely, from the hat on down, most others ended up less soaked, well except for the guy that was riding in the bow :-)
Anyway while the bilge pumped worked and eventually the majority of the water pumped out I was thinking it would have been nice if it had been able to pump out the water faster. If we'd taken a third over the bow we might have been done for.
So all you wild and crazy Moomba owners, any ideas on the best way to install a big honkin bilge pump, something with far greater GPH capability than this stock pump? I'm thinking something that could empty a full bilge in a minute maybe?? BTW what is the stock bilge rated at? I haven't looked at the pump in detail.