ballast pump help-tsunami? pic

[Dave S]

I have a fat sac and homemade pump leftover from my old boat. I was advised to keep this sac for surfing (glad i did).

My homemade pump is a bilge pump with a hose clamped on the end. I would throw this overboard to fill up the sac then empty sac into bilge and pump it out that way. I do not want to do this on my new boat, unless that is the way it is done.

I am trying to figure out the tsunami pump, but it looks no different then my pump except that mine is 500gph instead of 1200.

So my question, when you empty your sac, do you reverse this pump and pump it overboard? If so, how does the reverse part work, is there a switch, turn pump around? Sorry, I just am not sure how it is done. I am guessing somehow this works but I am not sure. I would think that I do not want to drain this sac into the bilge of my new boat.

[Dave S]

pic of sac and pump, sac is about 4 feet long empty

[Guest]

the tsunami pump I have has a connector on the pump side too that allows me to connect it directly to the sack so I just pump out the sack with the hose over the side of the boat. the pump never needs to b e reversed this way, it is always pumping frmo the bottom inlet to the hose. Make sense?

[dingleberry]

Right - Tsunami pumps cannot run in reverse. So, if you are doing it manually, to switch from fill to drain you disconnect the pump and connect the other end of the pump to the sac. For systems that are plumbed in, you use one pump as a fill pump, and a second pump as an empty pump.

Impeller-type pumps such as Ballast Puppies are reversible.

[chpthril]

What you need is a live-well style pump that has a threaded inlet and not a bilge that has an open inlet. To drain, the pump will need to attach directly to the sac, then the hose goes overboard. Pump and flow still run the same direction.

[Dave S]

thanks guys

chpthril, I was at west marine yesterday (we were rained out) and saw this exact pump. So I am thinking I would get this pump, correct fittings and about 4 feet of hose on either side. I would also get the wiring and an acessory plug wired to be used at the accesory inlet (cigarette lighter) Is this correct? Or does the pump need to be at the water to start filling up the sac and attached at the sac to empty the sac? Make sense?

[chpthril]

thanks guys

chpthril, I was at west marine yesterday (we were rained out) and saw this exact pump. So I am thinking I would get this pump, correct fittings and about 4 feet of hose on either side. I would also get the wiring and an acessory plug wired to be used at the accesory inlet (cigarette lighter) Is this correct? Or does the pump need to be at the water to start filling up the sac and attached at the sac to empty the sac? Make sense?

The only piece of hose needed will need to be on the pump's outlet fitting on the side. The bottom fitting is the pump's inlet, and needs to be either in the water to fill or directly on the sac to drain. So I would get at least 6' of hose.

[Dave S]

ok, so to fill you just put whole pump overboard in water?

[chpthril]

ok, so to fill you just put whole pump overboard in water?

yep, that's it!