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I’m always looking for a good pump, since the nature of having a boat is having to stave off water being in the boat at some point.  I have a couple of manual bilge pumps, and of course a couple of powered ones permanently installed in the right places.  But you can always use something more portable. 

While doing some random searches, I stumbled across a great idea from the folks at Rule – the iL500 Portable Pump.  It’s a portable pump that is submersible, can be used in-line, has battery clamps for quick use, comes with hose and a nozzle for spraydowns, and can be used for both water and diesel.

I think it’s a great pump to have around when you happen to be away from the dock and need to get water out of somewhere hard to reach, or if you want to use the included nozzle to spray down an area – my boat’s not big enough to rank a dedicated spraydown system.  

They also built it so you could use it in-line – connect a section of hose before the pump, and down inside, say, a tank or hard to reach area, and then the other side of the pump would be plumbed into wherever you wanted to transfer the liquid.  

The included roll-flat hose, and convenient spray nozzle that clamps down on the flat hose are a nice convenience, as is the strainer for the non-in-line configuration.  It would be nice if they had a kit or option to replace the battery terminal clamps with a standard 12VDC cigarette adapter for safer connections, and without having to find your battery terminals.  You could always chop the cable and do that yourself I suppose.

I found it online at West Marine, but it’s only sold in the “kit” version which includes all of the extras above.  You can find it elsewhere as well, but I order so much from them it was more convenient to get it in the weekly shipment

I’ll let you know how it works in a few days…

steve Cleaning, Sailing iL500, rule iL500, rule slimline

How many heaters have you gone through?

I use a West Marine 1500W cabin heater, the ones you can buy for around $70 that sit on the floor, to keep the boat heated in winter.  I leave a door open to the engine compartment, and it also basically heats the rest of the boat without a problem.  However, the last 3 years in a row, I end up having to buy a new heater.  One year, I had to buy two.  The problem is they’re really cheap, and then the other issue I believe is the water and marine environment.

I found two major manufacturers out there who make bilge heaters, which is really what I care about.  The best one with the smallest footprint appears to be Xtreme Heaters.  I’m considering the 750W model, even though my boat isn’t that large, I’d prefer that it kept the majority of the entire boat warm no matter what.

I don’t like the temporary ones on the floor because of the potential for fire, movement, and because they seem to fail really easily.

I’d like to get one of these bilge heaters, and I know I have the room, but I would also like something that gives the rest of the cabin a little bit more heat – the bilge heaters I’ve found only kick in at 40 degrees, and then off at 55 maximum.  Not a really warm temperature if you happen to be working on the boat in an evening.  Of course, I know I could use one of the portable units when I’m on the boat, but if I’m wiring in something new, why can’t it heat the entire boat?

I can’t find anything but the bilge heaters that seem to have a decent enough warranty and design that they would last in a marine environment…

I suppose I could just install two of them, but again, it’s still only going to get to 55 degrees at the most.  

What I really would like to find is a marine grade heater that runs off of AC power and is simple to mount and install.

steve Sailing

My previous engine had a meltdown before I had it removed, and that included dumping a huge quantity of watery oil into my bilge.  Ever since then, oil makes it’s reappearance almost weekly within the bilge.  I suppose I will never get rid of it completely…

I’ve tried all sorts of things, from absorbent pads, to simply sucking it out with a high volume pump, and disposing of it appropriately.  Nothing seems to work that well, at least not until I found BioSok.

It’s some sort of powdery looking chemical that reacts to oil and fuel, and pulls it into it, then uses some microbes to eat off the oil.  I ended up buying two of the cloth socks, and one small bin of powder.  I used the powder directly throughout the bilge on the surface to get the oil that had been in there for a while since the repower.  I have the socks standing by to be used once the initial cleaning is done.

So far, the powder has been in the bilge about a month, and it has turned a nasty dark brown color.  I don’t see any oil in the water, or on any other surfaces of the bilge, which is good.  I guess that means it’s doing it’s thing.  At this point, I think I leave it for a while so the microbes can eat, or I could dispose of it appropriately somewhere.  The stuff is the consistency of chocolate fudge – I’m sure it doesn’t taste as good though.

I’m hoping in a few weeks things will dissipate more, and if not, I’ll clean it all out.  At that point, I’ll drop one of those socks into the bilge in case there’s any other problems during the season.

So far, these things look pretty convenient, and environmentally friendly.

steve Cleaning, Engine biosok

 I’ve had my new DDM’s with warning cancelers installed now for over a month, and have had no problems at all.  I still have the daytime running light feature enabled, so they’re on pretty much all of the time, which concerns me a little, but I’m sure I’ll eventually forget about it.

When I installed them, I tried to jam everything into the light housing as best as possible, and ended up with a pretty big mess, but it all held inside.  I’ve been wondering lately if I should open it up and see how really bad it looks – I’m mildly concerned about rubbing and heat. 

I do notice every so often when I hit some large bumps, that the lights seem to shimmer a little bit.  I don’t remember if my previous lights did that in the Audi, but I’m pretty sure they did.

Overall, I’m really happy about the upgrade – the old halogens were simply ugly.

steve c30

One really annoying thing that seems to be growing in annoyance is the fancy key with my C30.  I don’t have the keyless entry, just the “normal” key.

First, the key itself is shaped like a traditional key, but it’s not similar to many of the other keys I’ve had recently.  My Audi key folded into itself to make it nice when it was in my pocket.  It would be much better if the thing was smaller – it’s a horrible size to fit anywhere, especially into your pocket.

Second, the key itself when it’s in the ignition is so close to the wiper control, and to the radio dash, that keys hanging with it on my keyring bang against things.  That’s not so bad for the wiper control, but it’s really not good for the radio dash – I’m afraid of wear and dents.  The other annoying thing is that the keys vibrate on the metal valet key part of the Volvo key, and that can be heard throughout the car.

I really wish they had spent more time thinking about this part of the car since it’s used all of the time.  For now, I end up swinging my other keys across things so they don’t bang, but they still vibrate.  I’m considering a keyring that will allow me to disconnect the car key from it, but then I’ll likely lose it

steve c30

About a month and a half ago, I bought a kit from Island Girl Products after having read some reviews online, as well as conversed with the owner via email.  Their products are advertised in some of the sailing magazines I read, and seem to be well thought out from a chemistry perspective.

Unfortunately, due to the U.S. Mail, I didn’t get the first shipment.  After a few delays (both on U.S. Mail’s side and Island Girl) I got my kit.

A few days ago I dissected it.  The only bad part about their products is that there are so many of them!  The kit I bought has at least 12 different unique products that can/should/may be combined to do something to some part of your boat.  Included with all of these products are some nice microfiber cloths, scrapers, and such.  AND, 5 CDROMs.  

Since their products can be combined in so many ways, depending on how bad/good your gelcoat or other surfaces are, the CDROMS seem necessary.  Diagrams and “flow charts” can be found on some of them, while others are plain old DVDs with interestingly produced movies showing how to use the products.  I like the beach music used throughout!

So far I have not figured out exactly which products I need, and when.  I hope to be able to do that over the weekend so I can use some next week.  My topsides are pretty weathered, and I would like to restore them as much as possible. 

More later!

steve Cleaning island girl system, sailboat cleaning

I haven’t posted here in a while – too much going on at work lately.  

Have had no problems with the C30.  Still drives just like the first day, and I just hit 1000 miles today!  Just about time to take it in for it’s first oil change, I think.  

There are some annoying noises that I’ve traced down to loose seatbelts when a backseat passenger gets out, and other nonsense that could be termed user error.

I am having some issues with playing MP3 CDs but I think it may be that I am trying to cram too much onto them (126 tracks on one) and/or have a bad CD or two.

More later!

steve c30

So far all of the new electronics have been working well.  The Boatsense unit was finally RMA’ed for the 2nd time (3rd unit) and everything seems to be working with the new one.  I haven’t heard the failure reasons for the other two units yet – not sure that I will, but I will keep hoping.

All of the other electronics have now been out on the water 5 times, and one time in really nasty weather, without any issues.  All of the tie downs and redundancies I’ve designed in seem to be holding well.

I’ll keep tweaking individual settings – for instance, if I have the AIS scan on 2nm on the Garmin unit, it seems to spin up it’s cooling fans quite a bit, which would indicate that it’s using a lot of it’s CPU power to process the AIS vessels on the screen.  I’ve tried dropping that a bunch, and it seems to help, but then it reduces the effectiveness – if I can’t scan further out, how will I know about things earlier.

No more electronics planned for a while.

steve Sailing