Joined the no plug group - BIG TIME

[TerryMSU]

Yesterday I went to the lake to fish. I knew that my bilge pump was not functional, but I thought, "I never use it." Bad move. I left the plug out. I p[arked the trailer, and make a very quick stop at the head. At the time I though it looked a little funny, but... As I left the head, I was SURE it looked a lot funny. I fired up the boat and got it beached on the ramp just in time. When I got done, the water was just at the top of the batteries. No bilge pump. I managed to get the plug in the hole. (My plug goes in from the inside.) Then I bailed enough out to get it to float and backed the boat back in the water. Another boater backed the trailer under the boat, and pulled it out as I held the boat where I wanted it. Let it drain, and went back fishing. Tonight I took the time to troubleshoot the bilge wiring.

Problem was a butt type crimp that was not adequately crimped. Both ends of the crimp were loose enough that I could easily slip the wire in and out of the crimp.

To fix it I used a heat shrink butt splice. Before I put one of these on I always apply some di-electric grease to the stripped ends of the wire to seal the connection from the air. Also, I pull on the crimp to make sure it will not just slip out of the crimp. No known failures that way YET.

TerryMSU

 

[monk-monk]

Re: Joined the no plug group - BIG TIME

As we say here on iboats, "if you claim you never forgot to put the plug in before launching a boat...you're lying, or it just hasn't happened to you YET...!! The bilge pump is one thing i test before i ever launch my boat...!!

 

[Mark42]

Re: Joined the no plug group - BIG TIME

This spring after installing the batteries, I checked all electrical systems and found the bilge pump was not working. Turns out the fuse in the "water proof" inline fuse holder corroded badly from some salt water getting in. New fuse holder and fuse fixed it. Glad I found it was broken before I needed it!

 

[LippCJ7]

Re: Joined the no plug group - BIG TIME

Terry, as a person who uses butt splices as part of my profession, If you are using heat shrinkable butt splices with the heat activated glue I would not use any type of dielectric, the reason being is it will prevent the heat activated glue from bonding with the pvc jacket on the wire. I use dielectric grease so much we purchase it by the case, I highly recommend it for many purposes, but anytime we heat shrink anything (all of our heat shrink has heat activated glue including terminations) we splice it dry.

Very happy everything worked out for you though could have been a bad situation!! And welcome to the club!!

 

[reddogg]

Re: Joined the no plug group - BIG TIME

Glad you got her beached before she sank. After my plug episode, I made putting the plug in the boat part of my hooking the trailer up to the truck routine

Red

 

[Fireman431]

Re: Joined the no plug group - BIG TIME

Not wanting to hijack the thread, but this was too close to your story not to pass along.

A man down the dock from me had a slow leak on his boat and kept putting off getting it fixed, knowing the bilge pumps kicking on every half hour took care of the problem (no dead batteries...on shore power).

He woke up this morning to find his 47' Trawler sitting on the bottom of the lake after his bilge pump wiring shorted.

That's one piece of equipment that you hope you never need, but you better make sure it works.

 

[Home Cookin']

Re: Joined the no plug group - BIG TIME

I had a bilge pump sound like it was working ,but the shaft had broken, so the impeller didn't spin although the motor did. Moral: don't rely on sound checks.

To the OP: with a plug you install inside, you can just run the water out, after you have bailed enough to do it safely. But you have to know your boat.

 

[Benny and his jets]

Re: Joined the no plug group - BIG TIME

Bummer! I get paranoid about my plug too. I have an auto bilge pump with a floater switch but for some reason that never seems to kick in even though when the boat was on the trailer, I rocked the boat after it rained and sure enough, the pump shot the water out. Yet it wont do that when the boat is in the water. So I have to go on the boat and turn on the pump on the panel.

 

[TerryMSU]

Re: Joined the no plug group - BIG TIME

I had a bilge pump sound like it was working ,but the shaft had broken, so the impeller didn't spin although the motor did. Moral: don't rely on sound checks.

To the OP: with a plug you install inside, you can just run the water out, after you have bailed enough to do it safely. But you have to know your boat.

I knew that, but unfortunately, getting at the plug while you are in the boat is a pain with this particular boat. By the time I got the plug in, I was concerned that the boat might be full again. Plus if the boat would have stalled, etc I would have been sunk. Very easy to do from outside, rough to get at from inside. If I had someone with me I would have done that.

TerryMSU

 

[sublauxation]

Re: Joined the no plug group - BIG TIME

I'm adding a second bilge wired completely independent of the first, including on a different battery, just for that reason. $40 of hopefully cheap insurance.

 

[reddogg]

Re: Joined the no plug group - BIG TIME

Allot of people won't do this (esspecially with I/O) but if you have an out board, it's a good idea to stick a water hose in it and fill the bildge up while on the trailer to give the pump an op-test periodically and to also run water into the bildge thru the bildge pump outlet to make sure no bugs have built nests in there and cloged it. I do it every few months and have never had a problem. One of those ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure things.

Red

 

[bigdee]

Re: Joined the no plug group - BIG TIME

I'm adding a second bilge wired completely independent of the first, including on a different battery, just for that reason. $40 of hopefully cheap insurance.

Yeah that is good assurance/insurance. I had two in my I/O because I always feared what might happen if I lost a transom bellows seal.

 

[TimBobCom]

Re: Joined the no plug group - BIG TIME

While beached over the weekend on a fairly popular island in the Mississippi I noticed that the automatic bilge pump kept kicking on and draining about a gallon or two of water every 2 - 3 minutes on the boat parked next to me. I was talking with the owner and being a "river rat" with his beater boat (rough looking 17 foot GlassStream - but with a HUGE stereo) he didn't seem too worried about it and told me he just installed a bilge pump big enough for a tug boat in there until he can get the leak fixed. I hope for his sake that his booming stereo doesn't drain his battery too much one day, or he doesn't have some other failure to prevent his bilge pump from kicking on or he would probably be sunk within 10 - 15 minutes.

 

[sublauxation]

Re: Joined the no plug group - BIG TIME

I can't believe how much faith people put in an auto bilge switch, mine failed on me and she came pretty close to going down in a torrential rain storm. The switch was only about a month old.

 

[DFW Miles]

Re: Joined the no plug group - BIG TIME

Ok.... This did it. Was going to go out today knowing that my bilge pump just quit. On my way to replace it right now. Thanks for giving me a dose of reality.

 

[CV16]

Re: Joined the no plug group - BIG TIME

Dude docked next to my dad had his boat sink this year. My dad now has an auto pump on each battery, and a manual one for back ups on each battery. I laughed, 4 pumps on a 22' boat.

 

[MH Hawker]

Re: Joined the no plug group - BIG TIME

two of murphys laws apply with a vengence with boats. 1 if it can go wrong it will and with boats at the worst time. 2 dont mess with mrs murphy

 

[slag]

Re: Joined the no plug group - BIG TIME

I never use butt crimps, butt slices, whatever you want to call them. Good ole heatshrink tubing and solder usually does the best job.

 

[TerryMSU]

Re: Joined the no plug group - BIG TIME

I never use butt crimps, butt slices, whatever you want to call them. Good ole heatshrink tubing and solder usually does the best job.

Heatshrink and solder would have been great, but I have never seen a good butt crimp fail. Key word is PROPER. Poor solder is just as bad as poor crimp. Solder can (and usually does) wick back up under the insulation. When it does you get a connection that is easily broken due to mechanical flexing. In critical aerospace connections, it is more common to use crimped connections, than soldered. The difference is in knowing how to minimize the failure modes and probability of failure. Frankly, my good soldrting equipment sets on a bench at work. Crimpers I can carry around and not need to worry about dragging the good stuff out to the boat.

TerryMSU

 

[LippCJ7]

Re: Joined the no plug group - BIG TIME

Heatshrink and solder would have been great, but I have never seen a good butt crimp fail. Key word is PROPER. Poor solder is just as bad as poor crimp. Solder can (and usually does) wick back up under the insulation. When it does you get a connection that is easily broken due to mechanical flexing. In critical aerospace connections, it is more common to use crimped connections, than soldered. The difference is in knowing how to minimize the failure modes and probability of failure. Frankly, my good soldrting equipment sets on a bench at work. Crimpers I can carry around and not need to worry about dragging the good stuff out to the boat.

TerryMSU

Absolutely, well stated, the only time we solder connections is in high current or high power RF where faulty connections can destroy things if the safety precautions fail. Another area where we solder is test cables in RF applications where tenths of a db or watt count. Otherwise proper crimping techniques do just fine with proper weatherproofing.