Back up ballast pump?

[just_driving]

I thought I would reach out to this community to get a recommendation for a back-up plan in case a ballast pump fails. I am particularly concerned about a drain pump failing. I had the port/aft pump fail a couple of times, and it made for a rough afternoon pulling out of a steep ramp and towing home. Once out of water, I know I can pull the fittings to empty PnP bag, and pull the pump to drain the bag under the floor, but the port side pump is under the batteries so not a trivial task.

I am thinking about buying an external pump (like a FatSac Tsunami), but would that allow me to drain any bag if a pump fails? If so, how and what fittings would be required for a 2019 R21? I particularly like the external pump idea if that would work because I should be able to use it as a backup bilge pump in an emergency, too, right?

In the end, I might move the batteries so that I have an easier access to the pump. Thanks for any words of advice.

[bsreid]

What kind of fittings does your rear pnp bags have? If they have the threaded screw in ones you can take a fly high thread from the standard tsunami pump and be ready to go. If it’s the glued in quick connect you will need a couple different fittings to go from the fly high quick connect to the threads on the bottom of the pump.

[chpthril]

You would still have to access the sub-floor ballast to drain it. An aerator pump attached to the above floor sac, would not suck water from the sub-floor. An impeller pump would though. IIRC, Tige was still using the barbed thru-hull style fittings glued into the sacs. No threaded ports.

[bsreid]

Yes my solution would only drain the pnp bag but you could just pop the top off the pump and drain the rest into the bilge.

[Jetdriver]

I carry a tsunami aerator pump with me for this reason. That and i fill a couple fly high bricks from time to time when I’m short on people. My rear sacks are Wakemakers and my front is Fly High so I have to have different fittings because of the size differences to be able to drain them all but have yet to ever need to use them.
I got an adaptor from Wakemakers to fit to a fly high quick connect drain fitting for my rear Wakemakers bags and I have a regular fly high quick connect for the bow. I run reversible pumps in my system.

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