Went to the boat for a quick sail…opened it up, looked in and saw the floor flooded by a few inches…I hit the switch for the bilge pump which is on auto, and no pump…So I proceeded to wet-vac the boat to remove the water and see what it was. My initial thought was the head exploded from the heat…nope thats salt water and its pretty clean. So its coming in the boat…from where? The packing gland is now my thought. It was dripping a bit more than I liked…I talked to the boat yard that hauled it out last year then replaced the stuffing box and they said a few extra drips is better than no drips. Called up KJ who knows the boat well and he said lets look at the packing gland…a STREAM of water was flowing from it. Once I got the bilge dry, I looked at the bilge pump and the positive power wire was broken off. A week ago it was working fine. My initial though since it was Saturday evening was fix the bilge, keep an eye on it until Monday and take it to the boat yard. I called Pat from Balboa Boat Yard who did the work on it last year. He wasnt there but I left a message. He called me back from Lake Arrowhead (great guy!) and told me how to adjust the packing gland. It seemed a bit daunting…but what choice did I have? Grabbed a big channel lock and 90 seconds later the leak was fixed. Now to clean it all up tomorrow…never got to go on that sail…glad this happened in the slip and not 20+ miles offshore. Tomorrow Im going to look at the failed bilge pump…I connected it to new power leads and it fired up..so I’ll look at that in more detail…Maybe I’ll get that sail after all!
I was a little concerned when I noticed your post concerning you flooding situation. I wanted to make sure you understand that your boat has a manual bilge pump for emergencies at sea. Notice the white hose with the brass end next to your electric pump? That’s the pickup and the pump access is on the port aft floor by the tiller under a long narrow plastic cover. It looks like a steel stub with a rubber boot. Find your handle which looks like a 12 in. tube with a handlebar grip on it and pump starboard to port (or vise versa ) to keep you afloat if your electronic every fail. My apologies if I insulted your knowledge but I figured better safe than sorry.
Mike -1976 Santana 30 #53
Hi guys
Happy to find owners of Santana 30. Mine is on the other side of the coast, in Quebec, Canada. I would love to exchange about our respective boats; drop me an email if you want to!
Best,
sam