Secondary bilge pump

Recently I've put our boat, a Sanger V-230, into dry rack storage. The problem is that I think there is still a couple of gallons of water in my boat when it's put into the racks.

Most of the time, the marina is closed when we return from a day of boating. So it's not often than we are at the marina when the boat is fork lifted from the water the next morning. Because I'm not there, I can't pull the drain plug myself. The marina has a policy of not pulling a boat's drain plug. Probably smart so they don't forget to put one back in.

I'm worried about mildew, and water that might leak through the cover during a rain storm. I really don't want water just stilling in the hull week after week.

My main (auto) bilge pump is in the rear under the engine, but this isn't the lowest part of the boat's hull when the boat in the water. I can run this pump manually, but the pickup is not low enough to get all of the water.

I need to add a secondary bilge pump to the lowest point in the boat which is under the bow ballast bag just below the walk-through.

I'm looking for a low volume automatic pump that's rather small.

Anybody have a recommendation?

Thanks,

Toneus

I don't think that you will have much luck with this. All automatic pumps are just regular pumps with a float attached to it. That is the catch, you need to have enough water to lift the float and activate the pump. When the water lowers, the pump will turn off, but you will still have water in the bilge, probably the same amount you have now.

Almost every boat out there has some water in the bilge, it does not cause mildew on it's own.

I don't sweat the mildew as much, but having your steering cable in water is not good. When I remember to do this, on the last couple of runs of the day, I will manually turn on the bilge when getting on plane. When you hammer that throttle, all the water sloshes to the back of the bilge and most of it gets picked up by the pump if it is on, but you have to manually turn it on with the switch because the water doesn't get high enough to trip the float. The other thing is that it is also easy to forget to turn off the bilge pump and I will hear it humming all to often when I turn off the engine after a 20 minute set and am sure I am wearing the pump out faster running it dry.

Yeah, I thought about running the pump on plane. Of course I forgot when I was on my way back to the dock.

Yesterday I filled the rear ballast tanks back at the dock to sink the rear. It was enough to get some, but not all of the water out. I've stood in the pump isle and tried to come up with various solutions.

I'm thinking a possible solution might be something like a small fish tank pump. Those are often pretty strong little pumps. Of course I'd have to run it off 12V.

I'm going to keep chewing on this one.

Toneus

If you are really worried about it and tend to follow the KISS principle, you can get a manual pump. This will suck the oil, tran fluid and water out of your boat. Great product.

http://www.jerrybleach.com/pelaapplications.html

You can get a "spongable" pump that will get rid of everything down to about 1/8". Get a manual, not an automatic.

If you really want to get rid of it all, get a 12V shop vac and take out the paper filter.

bmartin, I actually have one of those. Bought it for oil changes, but didn't care for it's oil sucking ability. I have however used it as a hand water sucker. It does work great for that. I might just have to put it on the boat.

Spongable pump? Headed to Google.

Thanks gang

I added one to my 01 V210 because the stock placement was laughable.
Put it in right below the front part under the motor,and it works great.