Offshoreonly.com - My boat sucked the flush hose flat

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My boat sucked the flush hose flat

I had my boat at a friends house and ran the boat on a hose. I didn't know his hose had some quick connectors and the hose sucked flat running my bravo style raw water pump dry at about 1200 rpm.

I would like to re do my flush setup so that this doesn't happen again;

My current setup has a thru fitting with a seacock. The seacock has a tee with one side going to the bravo style raw water pump and the other side going to a valve with a hose fitting. To flush I close the seacock open the flush valve and turn on the hose.

the three options I can think are:

1 take the hose washer out of the flush hose fitting so that the system will suck air with the water and not collaspe the hose.

2 install a flush tee on the line out of the bravo water pump going towards my heat exchanger.

3 install a valve and hose fitting on top of the heat exchanger where the zinc anode screws in. This would be the easiest fix if the water would flow back to the bravo pump and not directly down to the risers.

What is the best way to plumb a flush so that it won't suck flat the hose with low water pressure?

Thanks?

The engine is trying to draw more water than the hose can put out. What I do is connect a short large hose to the engine intake hose and put the other end into a large bucket and then fill the bucket with the hose connected to the faucet. Keep the hose turned on full. This way you cant overpressure the engine.

My Bravo drive does the same thing at a fast idle. It does not mean that you aren't getting any water. It is just that the drive is trying to suck the water faster than the hose can supply. The water is still coming through. As long as water is coming out the exhaust you should be OK. I wouldn't worry about it unless the engine is overheating.

I use a high pressure 3/4" ID hose (like big air compressor hose)and pipe it directly from the copper pipe and my house (remove faucet) to the hose feeding the raw water pump. This will stop the hose being sucked flat and you can run at what ever rpm you want.