tsunami pump question

[wakeOC07]

i was thinking of installing a ballast system, but wife isnt to keen on a whole in the bottom of the boat!(WOMEN????) anyways, i was thinking of mounting a 1200gph pump in the rear compartments and attaching a 1 1/8 hose to the intake of the pump, and when i want to fill i just pull the hose out put overboard and turn the pump on, my question is, does this pump have enough power to suck the water from the lake over the rail into into compartment. iwoul think it can if the seal is perfect! any thoughts would be great!

[chpthril]

i was thinking of installing a ballast system, but wife isnt to keen on a whole in the bottom of the boat!(WOMEN????) anyways, i was thinking of mounting a 1200gph pump in the rear compartments and attaching a 1 1/8 hose to the intake of the pump, and when i want to fill i just pull the hose out put overboard and turn the pump on, my question is, does this pump have enough power to suck the water from the lake over the rail into into compartment. iwoul think it can if the seal is perfect! any thoughts would be great!

To answer you question...yes. That being said, give her an all day trip to the spa and drill away You will soon get tired of the manual fill/drain bit as I did this summer.

If you dont want to drill another hole, I've read about guys T'ing into the raw water hose with out any issues filling, even with the engine running. Fro there, everything else is a straight forward "rival" type custom ballast install.

*EDIT* Forgot to add, for your idea, you will have to have both hoses long enough to reach over the side. The pumps are not reversible, so in order to drain, you will have to swap the hose at the sac.

[dogbert]

In order for a pump to work, it has to be primed, which means it has to have water from the intake to the impeller. So, no, I don't think that would work for you.

If you wanted to not drill holes in your boat, you'd need 2 pumps per water ballast sack, one for in and the other for out. You'd need a check valve on the intake and a gate valve on the output side. When you're filling, just toss the intake pump over the side and turn it on. You'd want to close the gate valve. Then when you empty it, you'd open the gate valve and turn on the pump connected to the gate valve.

[chpthril]

WakeOC,

Dog is right, you will have a problem priming these thins up unless the pump is in the water to fill, or on the sac to drain.

[wakeOC07]

i was going to have a pump for fill and one for empty, and a vent. but you dont think that it will suck water from the lake to the pump, even if i mount it low in the compartment?

[wakeOC07]

so what your saying is that these pumps dont actually have enough to pull water through a 1 1/4" hose!

[dogbert]

so what your saying is that these pumps dont actually have enough to pull water through a 1 1/4" hose!

No, all water pumps work this way. Once primed, it will pull just fine. You'll need to figure out how you're going to fill it with water, though.

[mtnsmith]

I heard the t in the water intake works ok as well. I like the spa day idea, does your wife pay that much attention to the back of the boat anyways? It's pretty quick and easy to drill a 2" hole through the boat. Atleast you're not installing a bow thruster with an 8" hole, then you would be using this!!!

[Big Wave]

I have set each of my 3 sacs up with 2 pumps and a shut off valve. The drain pump is right at the lowest outlet to the sac, one end of a 6' length of hose is conected to the drain pump, the other is conected to a 3/4" ball valve. The ball valve is conected to the fill pump.
To fill the sac we open the valve and tos it over the side and plug the cord into an outlet that we installed near the sac. once filled we unplug the pump, shut the valve and drain the pump, then tos hose and pump on top of the sac. To empty we open the valve and toss fill pump and hose over the side and plug in the empty pump. It is so easy that my 11 year old has no proble doing it.
I bought the pumps with the intent to do fully auto system but this has worked so well, I havn't found the motivation to finish the job.
I have a few pics I will post if any one is interested.

[chpthril]

I have set each of my 3 sacs up with 2 pumps and a shut off valve. The drain pump is right at the lowest outlet to the sac, one end of a 6' length of hose is conected to the drain pump, the other is conected to a 3/4" ball valve. The ball valve is conected to the fill pump.
To fill the sac we open the valve and tos it over the side and plug the cord into an outlet that we installed near the sac. once filled we unplug the pump, shut the valve and drain the pump, then tos hose and pump on top of the sac. To empty we open the valve and toss fill pump and hose over the side and plug in the empty pump. It is so easy that my 11 year old has no proble doing it.
I bought the pumps with the intent to do fully auto system but this has worked so well, I havn't found the motivation to finish the job.
I have a few pics I will post if any one is interested.

Yeah, i'd like to see how it's layed out and works. Thanks.

[Big Wave]

Here are a few pics. The vale you see down in the boat in the second pic near the empty pump is for a second sac that I have not tried yet. You can see the 12V outlet I installed in the lower left of the 2nd pic. I have this set up on both rear sacs and an integrated bow sac. All 3 work well every time.

[dogbert]

So, you never have to disconnect the pumps, right? Pretty slick.

[Big Wave]

Never disconect, never spill any water.

[chpthril]

So, if i'm reading this right (pics help, thanks) when you fill, you are pushing water through the "drain" pump? When you empty, your pushing water through the "fill" pump?

That's simple and effective.

[Big Wave]

So, if i'm reading this right (pics help, thanks) when you fill, you are pushing water through the "drain" pump? When you empty, your pushing water through the "fill" pump?

That's simple and effective.

You got it.
I have found that there is vary little friction loss through these pumps so the fill and empty time is about the same as before I added the second pump.