Bilges

MILANO BLANCO
James Blackburn
Tue 21 Jul 2009 11:00

21 July 2009   44:08:05N  025:33:45

 

James:

Windy, big waves, cold night. A lot of water over the foredeck, and it was getting below into the bilges which weren’t pumping out automatically. We left it too long without switching the pump on, and water was sloshing about up the inside of the bilge, and coming back over the cabin sole (floorboards) and the slowly draining back into the bilge. Robbie slept through all the sloshing, then alerted us and we bailed into the sink and then pumped the rest out. It seems the pump’s electrical connections were wet and only when we lowered the water level by bailing did the bilge pump start working again. Lessons learned! The weather had calmed down by morning.