How to Use a Bilge Pump on a Boat

Video Transcript

Some of the other things out there you probably want to do is check your running rigging, make sure everything is good, you don't have any chafes in it there, so a lot of times, your rigging is old and hard so you want to put new rigging on. Your standing rigging, you want to possibly check that too, there is, after a certain fashion, after it gets old and it rusts and cracks, that's not one of the things to be after to have some of your standing rigging hard on you, so it's good to check that. Other than that too, you have to put on another second emergency, second bilge pump. Most boats have an electrical bilge pump and they will have one manual bilge pump but it's a rule, they want you to have two manual bilge pumps, one located on the outside such as we have here on this boat, plugged in through here. This one here, you raise the lid, put the handle in here and you pump up and down. The other is electric. What does it do? It pumps the water. It pumps the bilge dry. Okay. Or if you have any kind of leak in your boat there it will pump it out. And you also will have to have one to do exactly like that mounted inside the boat, so you are normally not able to evacuate water outside, but you can evacuate it inside the boat. Other than that, it's just mainly common knowledge, they want you to have a radio, a single side band radio is good. Your VHF radio within sight, it has a range just like a CB radio out there, so you want to go with a single side band and maybe a hand held or a ham radio, so that you can have extended range broadcasting. And one of the other things that we'll will be doing out there is we'll have to be reporting in every day, giving our position out on the water so they can keep track of us. And this reporting goes to? It will be going to the race committee boat, and so what you're going to be doing is putting in on the website so that other people can track our progress throughout the race and plus it keeps track of us too. One of the requirements is that you have to check in everyday, if you don't check in everyday then they could scratch you off the race. Well, I'm at a blank as to what else you need. Here you go. That's a good start though. Right and how many days, I mean on average, what the speed the boat will be going and how many days do you think it takes to get there from San Francisco to Hawaii. Yeah, our boat has a hull speed of 6.3. so it will only go that fast, through the water out there, so we are trying to average, if we can average six knots, we'll probably do it in sixteen days, it's about twenty-one hundred miles from San Francisco to Hawaii. And, so we are going to try to average six knots, if not, five will do, that's going to get us there in about eighteen days. So, well, it's quite a ways over there. I think we're planning on staying there two weeks and then resting up a little bit and then coming home. And coming home it'll be the same thing there except instead of mainly going downwind, being on a broad reach, we're going to be beating toward the wind so we'll be coming in close reaching, maybe beam reaching, working our way upwind. And if there is a high sitting out there, then we're probably going to have to go a little further, meaning that we'll have to head up toward Oregon, maybe Washington depending on how that high sits off the coast and then tack and then come on back down. And most of the time, coming across out there is a good, nice, warm sail until you get two to three hundred miles off the coast of California and then it gets nasty and cold and a lot of times you hit some bad weather coming across, maybe a storm and so, it can get real nasty and cold. So Ed, when you sail to, from San Francisco, to Hawaii, do you go in a straight line from here to there? My old boat will probably have to go the run line which is a straight line down there because we can't afford, our boat is slow and we can't afford to be falling off our speed, meaning there, instead of going a little further, laying a broad reach, we'll be making a round. So some boats will go directly south a little more? Some boats will go further south, pick up some speed there, because they have the speed there where they can come on back. And we can't afford not to. Some of the bigger boats may make the race over there in six to seven days, because they are going to be averaging fifteen to twenty knots, maybe faster and they'll be flying spinnakers for twenty four hours a day, day and night. No matter how fast the wind blows, they'll be flying their spinnakers. Spinnakers are the sails? Spinnakers are a real light sail, it's a big blue and white sail that flows out in front of you, so they are the real pretty sails that you see out there on boats. And you will only be flying spinnakers during the day and you will take one down? Yes, we'll be flying our spinnaker just during the day, just for safety reasons, because it's just my wife and I at night and if a storm comes up, which most of your squalls do, they come up night, so we'll be ready and prepared in case something happens up there, and we don't want to be running for it in the middle of the night and trying drop sails. That's one other reason why raise my spinnaker with a sock, which means that when I raise it there, I pull on the line there and it raises up and uncovers the sail. That sits up on top, and then when I get ready to close it, I just drop the sock and it just loosens up all my lines running to the spinnaker and it kind of just folds up there and I just suck it into the sock. Like here, this one here you raise the lid, put a handle in here and then you pump up and down, or if you have any kind of leak in your boat here it will pump it out. And you'll also have to have one do the exact same thing like that mounted inside the boat, so you not only are able to evacuate water outside, but you can evacuate it inside the boat.

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