I hear ya Brian. The only thing is those big pumps are brutal on the batteries. What I do see your pump doing is maybe keeping your bilge a little dryer while you are getting down in the bilge to pump. I just do not see the advantage of not having it bolted in to your boat permanently other then I guess if you see some one else that needs it you can toss it over to them.... The sea strainer idea is a good one but most of the boats that I see have those things up high so you already have enough water in the boat to make it very unstable. That is why I like the drop the hose in the bottom of the bilge.

Like some one said earlier I would be over the side soving anything I could find in those holes if that is how long it really took to sink. I had a customer whose sport fish was sinking because he had a major hull failure and he was stuffing mattresses in the hole Another guy that I know got his by a drunk boater and it cracked the entire side of the boat open. We made a duct tape blanket and put it on the thing and the preasure of the water trying to get in was enough to hold the thing in place and it actually did not leak at all.

Jon

Did it stick a sponson and land upright ...under 70' of water?

Another tidbit of info:

On the Chicago Poker Run, an older Kevlar Cigarette lost a portion of the side of the boat up near the cabin. The side just delaminated and flapped open like a banana peel. Quick thinking by the captain of dropping that side's tab in the water and gunning it... got him the several miles he needed to go back to his lift. He ended up going through the marina a bit faster than no-wake, but he stuck that thing on the lift just as the alternators started to go under water; and SAVED the boat. I can't image the lift operated too fast, but it did allow them to avoid sinking completely.

That is one lucky bastard!!! I am sure all the blow boat guys had something to say Ya the lift was probably like lift it up a inch then waite, lift a inch then waite........

Beautiful boat, such a shame, glad everyone is OK

on a side not I have been off the board for the last several days, someone told me about a cat pile up in CA, I am assuming threads must of got deleted since I see no mention of it................................

My seawater pickup is a thru-hull and the plumbing is ran with fittings to allow swapping the seapump in and out quicker. However it can also, like mentioned here be used to pump out the bilge once the valve is closed. Seapumps flow a ridiculous amount of water. I don't have the stats in front of me but when I was testing KPM pumps with a flow rig I had to be very quick to set the test point before the 50 gallon drum I was using was empty! Would empty a bilge in no time!

And there's no reason not to carry a spare bilge. Small and could save the boat - cheap insurance in my book...

During a poker run and noone could hook up and tow it before it went down.. if you tow it at 10+ mph nothing will come in ??????

http://www.hondapowerequipment.com/M...odelName=wx15#

small and should keep up just have to be carefull of exhaust fumes
20lbs should store easliy, its a honda and will start
fuel needs to be stored in some sort of container not in the pump.

Somehow I cant see carrying a trash pump around in the boat as the solution

Any idea what caused the drive to break? Did they hit something? There are some place on Grand that are shallow around that reach out 30-40 yards from the lighthouse beacons.