A25 water trap under head sole?

[WillieC]

Deep cleaning time, and the Jabsco needed a new joker valve. Stalled as long as I could. Toilet is pretty new, and lightly used having been installed just before we bought our A25. Hoses are all good too. Most projects have a tendency to escalate and this one did not disappoint, so I cut to the chase and ripped the whole thing out.

The head was mounted on a hunk of highly absorbent unfinished plywood, part of why I was glad it was lightly used. Two coats of spar varnish and it could have taken more, but I was trying to rein in mission creep. Then I discovered how the supports were attached to the sidewalls....

Anyway, as I'm poking around and looking at the construction I see that the floor, as built at the factory, was built so that one steps up into the loo onto a “level” floor as the hull starts to rise pretty good the farther forward you go. Makes sense. As I'm putting the toilet base back in, I dropped one of the nuts for the support ledger in the hanging closet just forward of the head. Since it was decent stainless steel, my trusty magnet wouldn't pick it up as I went fishing for it and, lo, I discover a triangular hole that I assumed the nut fell into. This is the void under the head floor and it creates quite a water trap, at least on the WillieC. Especially since the window seal on the starboard side is failing and dumping more water than you could imagine, but only when it rains or you take on green water. I have temporarily fixed the window leak.

Careful what you stick your hand into when you are alone on the boat. Twice, not too bright, I almost got stuck reaching back in there trying to find limber holes before I thought of using a mirror and a flashlight. No drainage. And a substantial trap as you can see from the pics. In the hole I found two cans of tuna that had pinholed and leaked their fine juices into that non-draining trap. Use your olfactory imagination. Fortunately, the window was previously leaking bad enough and finding its way into that sump and sort of rinsing it out. Not quite to Health Department standards.

So, is my boat missing a piece of triangular shaped fiberglass that would entirely seal that area or am I missing a drainage hole? (Simply adding holes along the lowest edge, parallel to the keel, will only soak the carpet in the galley. Any suggestions to just drill holes in the bottom of the boat will be dismissed outright.) I have looked on the aft end, at the front and starboard side of the engine box and found a drain tube that dumps into the bilge just in front of the engine pan. It connects to the battery area and does not drain the head floor cavity. (There is a corresponding drain tube on the port side for dumping fuel from a leaking tank into the bilge, hopefully not.)

Once the space under the head sole fills with water it will overflow to the front just under the settee. But it will hold a lot of water, and a couple of perforated tuna cans, for a long time. See the low corner in the first pic. I am going to advise against storing tuna cans under there. And hope none of the waste hoses leak too much. Picky, picky, picky.

Have a look, then take a peek at your A25 and tell me what I am missing.

IMG_1469.JPG

IMG_1473.JPG

[dkirsop]

Well, I don't have one of those fancy fibreglass floors but here's what the arrangement on my boat looks like. Note the slot for ventilation. All drainage leads into the bilge.

P1040933.jpg

With respect to toilet maintenance I have come up with a real hi-tech solution to 99% of the problems. Meet mini-John the mighty blockage clearer!

P1040935.jpg

Lift your pump handle fully up and give 2-3 good plunges.

image.png

Don't leave port without it.

[WillieC]

Dave, I like the air slot idea. I thought of a round hole with a small access cover, just to keep an eye on things. In case a can of tuna goes missing, for example.

According to Xylem, the Jabsco overlord, a plunger can invert your joker valve. I would not want to deal with a rekoj valve, especially if something got caught halfway.

What about the triangle I found? You say all drainage leads to the bilge. The low spot is just to the left of your air slot. Where are your limber holes or tubes for draining that area? Or, as I suspect, is yours all sealed up, save for the slot? With your access hole below the 120V outlet as shown, it may be difficult to determine. Maybe you can look down from inside the hanging closet?

I love your faux teak flooring, maybe it is real. I cannot have this kind of detail on our boat because I only go to the dentist twice a year. Not enough old toothbrushes laying around for cleaning the white caulk.

[dkirsop]

My photos do not show the joint lines clearly but the sill plate is not sealed against the hull, it is only a close fit and not anywhere near water tight. My boat, being an earlier model is fitted out with plywood floor panels that lie loose. What looks like hardwood flooring is peel and stick vinyl plank flooring spaced to accommodate white latex caulking. A poor man's fancy floor! If you look closely just below the access hole you can see it has been glued directly to the hull which previously would have been bare fibreglass.

Not too worried about the joker valve. The plunger is too small to have the oomph of a full size unit. I suspect it is sized for clearing sink drains.

[dkirsop]

I should have mentioned that the closet bulkhead extends to the bottom of the hull so I do not have the triangular opening you refer to. I installed a deck plate in the head floor for access to the void as that is where I placed my in-hull transducer. The slot is original and was used by Albin as the cold air return for the heater but is just providing ventilation in my boat.

[WillieC]

Excellent information! As you might see from my second picture, it sure looks like it was prepped for additional tabbing on the bottom of the hull, yet another missing link in the switch from full- to semi-super-deluxe-displacement hulls. And you can see how the fiberglass sole, fully sealed to the hull, unlike your sill plate, would make a very nice trap.

I think I will let it dry out, maybe all season, then seal the triangle with a little fiberglass work next winter. I also thought of cutting an access hole in the top, but that is just one more thing to trip on in the middle of the night. Fully sealing it sounds like a fine idea, but it is a boat and moisture, even if condensation, will still collect in there and continue to reactivate the tuna. Ventilation is a great idea.

Thanks for the great info, Dave.

[DesertAlbin736]

We don't seem to have the problem with water getting trapped. But any little screws, bolts, or nuts that get dropped tend to disappear into another dimension never to be seen again.

DSCN3635.JPG

Closeup of the outlet from the holding tank. The arrow on the Y valve handle points to the side that's shut off, so in this case it's lined up to pump out via the deck fitting which is how it's normally left.

20171115_104143_resized.jpg

This is the flush water supply through hull for the head, located at the bottom of the hanging closet. One problem I'm having is all those plastic trim pieces around the inside of various openings in the wood work are disintegrating & coming loose from the heat. Who knows where to find replacements? We're in for another hot summer. Here it's only four days into May & Sunday May 6 is supposed to hit 105 and stay between 98 & 103 as far out as the 10 day forecast goes. If it's 105 outside that means 125 in the cabin with everything closed up. That's why my home port tag line says 'Lake Pleasant and beyond', because come summer it's time to get the heck out of Dodge.

20171115_103931_resized.jpg

[kerrye]

I have no idea if my boat has a drain in that location. I will check once I get to the boat this summer. I do know that on my boat the drain under the front of the engine pan is actually a tube which connects the center/aft bilge with the front bilge via the tube which extends all the way under the engine pan. I know the port compartment which holds the fuel tank doesn't drain until it gets full enough to run out the back into the center/aft bilge. Before it reaches that point it will overflow into the engine pan. I know this because in the rain, water is somehow getting in to that location.

[WillieC]

Kerry, we had water on the port side as well. It turned out to be the bedding, or lack thereof, around/under the Bransle fitting. Fortunately, the core was ok. It appears that the core is wood around the edge and foam farther inboard. The fuel fitting was simply screwed into the top layers of glass and gelcoat. Lame. Water was running down around the outside of the fuel fill hose, thankfully not inside it. Check your o-ring at the fill cap, too.

Your description of the one inch or so tube connecting the front and center bilges is exactly like mine. If you stick your hand way in the front bilge access hole right in front of the engine, you can reach back towards both sides of the engine box and find the tubes that connect to the compartments for fuel, port, and batts, starboard. My starboard tube seems to be plugged, while the fuel side is open, which will let any water drain either to the back or to the front around the engine box. Access to the rear end of these tubes requires removing the bransle tank or the batts, depending on how they are installed.

Steve, it looks like your supply hose runs through that triangular section I described, but you appear to have the support stick, shown in the pic, that would divert any water from above in the hanging closet. I may just make an epoxy or glass dam on the hull to direct any leakage, but leave the bulk of the hole so it can breathe.

[kerrye]

I did rebeded the fuel fill fitting in an attempt to resolve the problem. It didn't fix it. I'll check for those two additional tubes. I've used a plastic 'snake' to clean out the center tube. I'll run it thru the port and starboard ones if I find them.
All I can find in the dictionary for 'bransle' is a type of dance. Can you enlighten me?

[ednlorna]

WillieC, thanks for the informative thread. I'm getting a first class education and LMAO as a bonus!

[WillieC]

The tubes I described on each side of the engine are about 1/4" ID, much smaller than the center tube. I use a coat hanger. If it needs to go around a bend I'll use a large ty-wrap.

"Bransle" is cast into the fill cap. It is Swedish for Fuel. It's got an umlaut or two and maybe an accent, possibly a tilde as well in the original. I thought it meant Diesel, but he was a real person and most assuredly NOT SWEDISH, so wouldn't need a translation. I had to look it up myself.

Since the advent of the internet, I am no longer the life of the party where people do instant fact checks on my occasional, semi-literate, mostly BS, alternative fact ramblings. I hate it. Here's a link on Rudolf Diesel:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rudolf-Diesel

Just read a great post on TF about head s...t. It includes a post by Head Mistress, Peggie Hall (go buy her book, we are) about swapping the toilet pick-up from its dedicated through hull to the sink drain through hull. That way, you can close the through hull and run a sink full of gray-fresh-water through the toilet periodically and tamp down the marine growth when using only seawater for flushing. The toilet pick-up in this installation must be below the water line. I could see installing another shut-off in the sink drain above the tee. Seems like one could end up sucking air from the sink drain. Check it out: (hope this is ok with moderators..)

http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s31/ ... ing-38113-
2.html#post659527

This way you can eliminate another through hull. YEEHAW! Somebody do this and let me know how it works before I do.

(edit: Having just returned from the throne of knowledge where I do all my best thinking, I figured out why the tee for the toilet pickup must be below the water line. Since water, doing what it does best seeking its level, is forever trying to sink our boats through all our thru-hulls, with the tee below the waterline, as soon as you go to flush the toilet, a negative pressure forms on the water in the tee and heads up the line to flush and is instantly replaced by the ever present water trying to sink the boat. It won't suck air from the sink unless you can pump faster than barometric pressure. Yet another experiment waiting in the wings. I realize all the rocket surgeons, naval architects, and general smart people on the forum already knew this. I only provide a layman's explanation for the simple people, like myself. I should have paid more attention in school.)

On a final note, you'll be happy to know, but not as ecstatic as I am, that I did indeed find the wayward 60 cent nylock 5mmX.80 pitch nut that started this whole thread. It was up front beneath the farthest forward bilge access panel under the table just sitting there ready to be flushed to the great bilge in the sky (actually, the center bilge). I am so happy I think I'll celebrate with a tuna hot dish casserole later today!

[DesertAlbin736]

On a final note, you'll be happy to know, but not as ecstatic as I am, that I did indeed find the wayward 60 cent nylock 5mmX.80 pitch nut that started this whole thread.

So it didn't get sucked into a worm hole and shot around a bend in the space-time continuum into another dimension after all, as usually happens to little screws, bolts, & nuts that get dropped?

[WillieC]

Narrowly avoided the flux capacitor. Which, btw, is Baroque anyhow.

[tribologist]

Bringing this thread back to life..., I ended up with liters of water around my batteries this weekend. Turned out to be the dripless bearing vent pissing in the starboard locker and a plugged drain. On top of that i had quite a bit of water in the engine box since the drain in the front was plugged too. I took the opportunity of washing out as much i could get to. Im tempted to put a pvc tube over the air intake and dump a 5 gal bucket with warm water into the intakes to flush that stuff out. What i originally thought was that the drain holes at the tank and battery location drained all the way into the bilge but apparently not... what is in the cavity under the engine? Does the tube go the full way under the engine?