cockpit drains

i have two cockpit drains that drains into the bilge. I took a look and have drain holes for my coolers that drain to the outside. The cockpit drain is higher than the cooler and drain hole. Is there a reason why the dealer didn't connect the cockpit drains to the drain holes? Is there any safety issues with connecting the cockpit drains to the drain holes? I can't think of any issues. Thanks for any input. I would like to place a shower enclosure in the cockpit for my lady to rinse off and have it drain outside. Thanks!

Re: cockpit drains

The cockpit drains on my boat are much bigger than the other drains. I would guess that they are sized to get the water out of the cockpit as fast as possible to keep the boat from sinking if a wave comes over the back.

My cooler drains are much smaller than the cockpit drains, I wouldn't want to count on them emptying the cockpit if I needed them in bad weather. But if your cooler drains are big enough, it shouldn't be a problem.

Re: cockpit drains

But cockpit drains into the bilge then force your bilge pump to remove them. Although it might be larger diameter, I couldn't imagine you bilge thru hull is much larger than the cooler drains?

Re: cockpit drains

My cockpit drains don't appear to be any larger than the cooler drains. In fact, i think they are the same type of drains. Draining the boat via gravity is probably slower than a bilge pump given the same diamerter tube. What about an inline diverter where it goes into the bilge normally and when I use the shower, switch it to the outside? Am I thinking too much?

45Auto said:

The cockpit drains on my boat are much bigger than the other drains. I would guess that they are sized to get the water out of the cockpit as fast as possible to keep the boat from sinking if a wave comes over the back.

My cooler drains are much smaller than the cockpit drains, I wouldn't want to count on them emptying the cockpit if I needed them in bad weather. But if your cooler drains are big enough, it shouldn't be a problem.

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Re: cockpit drains

The cooler drain is a gravity drain, the bilge pump discharge is under pressure. Gravity flow through a .75" pipe is about 600 GPH while a single decent bilge pump will easily flow 3 or 4 times that much:

http://www.powerboat-reports.com/newspics/pdfs/13-6-VG.pdf

My boat has two 3700 GPH bilge pumps, one mounted in a small sump of about two gallons in size, the other mounted just above it. More than a couple of gallons of water will set off both bilge pumps, which would then be pumping at least 5000 GPH total.

I would guess the thought process with the big drains to the bilge was to get as much of the weight of water as low as possible, then use the bilge pumps to get it out as fast as possible. Using the cooler drain would take over 8 times as long to empty the water, with the weight up high on the deck the whole time.

Re: cockpit drains

Also, "cooler" drains go directly overboard because they are fish lockers, and you want that water gone directly, not putting funky water in your bilge.

Re: cockpit drains

Good point, as I completely disregarded the fact the bilge is under pressure vs the gravity feed from the lockers. Never would have guessed there would be that significant of a difference between the two.