[Public-List] Bilge

[John Johnston via Public-List]

Hello Winslow - I recently addressed this area in my 1965 Alberg. I was re-placing my bilge pump, which has never been secured to anything, just kind of lying at the end of its hose. What I did is to buy a piece of 1/4 “ aluminum plate and shaped it to fit into that “shelf” that exists before it drops off into the deeper trough. It is a tapering situation - sort of a keystone or dovetail scenario. I secured the base of my bilgepump to that aluminum plate. dropped it in and it locked itself in place. Works lovely. It has a retrieval line made to it for replacemant or service. I then took a cheap wet/dry shop vac with a long extension and sucked out fifty years of grit, sand, and history in the deeper trough, and I did it until what was left was… nothing. I kind of like that deep trough to serve as a “settling tank" for contaminants and heavy debris. Periodically it will need to be sucked out again. Every fifty years or so. Works a bit like a septic tank. And that’s where the small tools and bits and bobs settle.Quite the archeologic dig.
	Fair winds, John Johnston