The old bilge cover had a small access hatch but I needed to take the whole thing off to get inside and fix the keel leak.
- old bilge.jpg (246.16 KiB) Viewed 1411 times
One of the problems was only a manual bilge pump. Another problem, so I found when we had massive torrential rain, was that the cockpit would flood and fill the bilge. Here is what a couple of day's flooding rain did. I had started work on the plumbing [note some serious size piping?] but the rain beat me to it. Then I had to move my boat down the river for a month until the floods were gone and not much work got done for a time.
- Bilge filled with rain water.
- bilge.jpg (210.35 KiB) Viewed 1411 times
I decided I wanted the bilge cover to be removable, not permanent like previous. And I wanted an automatic electric bilge pump. And . . . . In the end, I sealed off some of the bilge space to make a fresh water tank (35 litre usable), made a little dip into which the electric bilge pump and manual pump hose can sit and take practically all the bilge water away, installed a fresh water pump, and made all the covers removable if need be [and with a screwdriver, not a chisel. The front wooden step is clipped on so easy to check underneath].
- bilge2.jpg (207.9 KiB) Viewed 1411 times
The covers on the bilge, and you can see tucked under the step is a bilge pump switch with wiring that runs straight to the battery. Steps are not back in yet. You can see the new waterproof solar regulator at the top of the pic and the 100 ahr AGM battery sitting under the cockpit. The old battery was in the cockpit locker alongside the spare fuel, so I was keen to re-design it. There is room for another battery, and wiring has been seriously upgraded in size. However, that is all part of a different reno than the bilge so I will go into it another time.
- bilge3.jpg (196.78 KiB) Viewed 1411 times