Sea water foot pump water source?

Ventured · **Joined:** 12 Oct 2010 23:30 **Posts:** 12

I just installed a footpump in the galley to run saltwater into the galley sink. I have yet to plumb the water to it, and I'm curious if anyone else has done this where they sourced the water. The closest source is the raw water intake from the engine, but I'm a bit nervous about messing with hose and the possibility of sucking air through the water spigot when running the engine, and reducing the flow of raw water through the heat exchanger. The other option would be the head intake, but that is a much longer hose run. I'm just curious what others have done, and how it worked out.

Velera · **Joined:** 29 Dec 2006 09:38 **Posts:** 656

Would be better to plumb this into the engine intake than to punch another through hull fitting IMHO. Think about it, you are probably not going to use both at the same time. If the engine sucks air through your spigot, you have a host of other problems that you need to solve--something is leaking. Most boats use a salt water "manifold" with multiple feeds because the intake of a through hulls is usually much larger than what is needed for cooling. One thing to pay attention to is that the engine intake on the stock W50 on a Tartan 37 is minimal in diameter and will be inadequate for newer repower arrangements. If you replace the through hull fitting I would strongly suggest going with a 1 1/4" fitting over the nominal 3/4" (which actually measures out smaller) that was in the factory installation. But whatever you are sucking for salt in your cleaning efforts will not affect this flow much. There is a mathematical equation for all of this and if you are a nerd, I will provide it.

Tortuga's Lie · **Joined:** 27 Oct 2006 10:32 **Posts:** 827

The way I look at it, you have three viable options, add another through hull; You could tee off of the sink drain, of course there would be some re-circulation of drain wate being sucked back up into the pump, but I am not sure if that would be noticable or not. The third option is the engine intake which you can put an inline ball valve for the saltwater intake which you can keep closed when running the engine, but this could be a pain to remember all of the time. I am not keen on the idea of running it from the head.....I like my through hulls to be close to it's destination for safety reasons.

conch · **Joined:** 21 Jan 2010 12:57 **Posts:** 168

I've installed a foot pump and tee'd off the raw water intake; actually I've set it up so that I can pump fresh or sea water with the one pump, using ball valves to selectmthe water source. I was going to install two pumps, but decided on the single.

sord · **Posted:** 21 May 2012 20:04

Did you have to put any sort of valve between the intake and the pump?

Ventured · **Joined:** 12 Oct 2010 23:30 **Posts:** 12

conch wrote:

I've installed a foot pump and tee'd off the raw water intake; actually I've set it up so that I can pump fresh or sea water with the one pump, using ball valves to selectmthe water source. I was going to install two pumps, but decided on the single.

Just curious, how much fresh water to you have pump through before the water isn't salty? Interesting idea but I'm afraid it might burn too much fresh water for us while cruising without a watermaker.

I did find find a spigot on the top of raw water filter with a ball valve, I think I can just screw on a hose barb and run the a hose to a pump, short, simple and mostly there already!

conch · **Joined:** 21 Jan 2010 12:57 **Posts:** 168

I'm using the Whale gusher(?) that pumps on each move-
ment of the pedal. Them salt is gone after one cycle ( a pint?)
If the boat's in clean water, I'm mostly using the sea water. There's
not a lot of volume in a 1/2" hose.

Tartan37.com

Sea water foot pump water source?

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