March 2, 2015
One of the things we did during our haul out was to make a new rudder shaft sealing system.
This bilge pump counter used to show up to 20 cycles per day when underway because of the leak in our old seal. We replaced the old packing gland with a carrier we had made. That new carrier holds two lip seals. About 150 miles later, the counter reads zero!
Hey, you have a counter on your bilge pump! Why? What gives?
We have a high-water alarm like most people do. Ours happens to be a $5 Home Depot water heater leak alarm, slightly modified. But I wouldn’t be without a bilge pump cycle counter.
The bilge pump should handle all but major leaks. A high-water alarm should never go off. But it’s so nice to know how many times the bilge pump cycles during the normal course of events. If there are no cycles registered, there are no leaks. A few cycles means a little water’s coming in from somewhere. If that number starts to climb, the leak is getting worse and it’s time to find out what’s going on.
Our counts have been climbing since we left on this cruise three years ago. I tracked down the source – the rudder shaft packing gland – and now that leak is no more (knock, knock, knock – wood).
I like the electro-mechanical version of these counters but they seem to be getting scarce. All-electronic ones are easier to come by. Ask Google or Defender Marine sells this electronic version.
They’re easy to install and wire. We just connected the 12 volt counter parallel to our bilge pump so that when the pump comes on via either the manual switch or the float switch, the counter counts. Tada! -Rich
