We blocked off the limber holes to isolate the water in one section of the bilge between MAYAN's deep floor frames. Then took the freshwater flush hose from the engine room and ran it in reverse to fill that section of the bilge with saltwater. Matthew manned the pump handle and in the attached video you'll see that he has no trouble draining the bilge with the 30-gallon per minute pump working against the 7-gallon per minute flow from the hose.
After the test, we connected a freshwater hose to the input hose and filled the system with fresh water. No need to let seawater sit in the pump. That said, apparently, seawater has been sitting in that pump for decades without hurting it at all.
The video is YouTUBE HERE or just click on the video below.
We also tested the engine-driven Jabsco 60-gallon/minute bilge pump which ran perfectly. It emptied the bilge so quickly that the crew spent quite a bit of time waiting for the bilge to re-fill. We've only run the engine at 1,000 RPM so far, which is below the maximum RPM for the pump. As a result, we were only seeing about 80% of the pumping capacity expected.
Our neighbor, the Columbia-50 XANTHIPPI, has hauled out for a paint job. This has allowed us to test the engine-driven pump in the slip. The outlet for the bilge water from this pump is located near the waterline, and when we engage the pump bilge water is sprayed all over the dock and into XANTHIPPI's slip. We washed the dock down completely after the test, happy that we'd waited until the slip was empty!
These tests are run annually to ensure that the pumps are in good working order.
