It is mid-winter here in New England and in the boatyard that means maintenance, checking and inspecting various critical parts of the stored boats to ensure the owner will have a trouble-free season come launch time.
For the past week, I have been inspecting seacocks and related items such as hose clamps and hoses. Usually, I don’t find much wrong, and occasional stuck or sticky seacock that needs lubrication, the occasional hose with only one hose clamp or one with hose clamps rusted beyond their service life and once in a while a hose that should be replaced.
So far this year I haven’t found any problems that would be real cause for concern about a boats safety but, there is one problem that keeps cropping up and to me is cause for concern.
That problem is, ACCESS! In short many of the seacocks, I inspect, with the boats sitting still on land, with most of their gear removed are pretty darn hard to access. To the point that I doubt some of them can be reached in a timely manner at sea should the n
eed arise.
We are all supposed to memorize the location of our seacocks so that in a flooding emergency we can shut them off to isolate a leak, we are supposed to make sure they work so they will operate when needed but are they accessible?
I find a lot of seacocks in places where a lot of gear has to be removed and, in some cases a bulkhead panel removed to access them and then they are only accessible if the person attempting to reach them is small enough to climb into the locker in question to reach the seacock and strong enough to operate the lever.
I also find them fairly close to the front of engine rooms access panels but with so much plumbing like hoses, cables, and wiring in the way, only someone with very small hands, a light and plenty of time can figure out how to squirm a hand thru the maze and reach the handle.
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Difficult to reach seacocks don’t have to be under a lot of gear in a sail locker or behind a maze of plumbing in the engine room, they are right under your feet under floorboards that are difficult to remove because the floorboards have swollen against each other or the handles use to lift them are stuck down or broken or require a little key to be inserted to lift them and the little key is now where to be found!
I have been saying now for a week I hope everyone has a good bilge pump because should a hose fail a lot of crews are not going to reach the offending seacock before it is under water.
Keep in mind a 1 ½” hose 4’ below the waterline will allow 100 gallons a minute into your boat. That volume will increase as the boat sinks lower and the hydrostatic head increases!
Most bilge pumps, including ones sold as 3000 GPH pumps will realistically only handle around 1500 GPH, a far cry from a 6000 GPH inflow from 100 gallons per minute, nor will several frightened men with buckets keep up.
It will be difficult on many boats to make all seacocks quickly accessible but many that are difficult to reach can be made easier by creating larger access panels and finding other places to stow some gear.
This problem seems to run across the spectrum of yachts with newer production boats tending to have the best access with their seacocks congregated in groups where all the seacocks for a head are located under one cabinet in close proximity to one another. At the opposite end of the spectrum are very expensive boats from respected builders with lots of gear crammed aboard in every conceivable space with seacocks seemingly installed where ever it is convenient but not always intuitive making it difficult to find and access many valves.
As part of your pre-voyage inspections personally locate and cycle all your seacocks, in your safety talks with crew have crewmembers actually find and cycle all seacocks, you will quickly learn which ones are difficult to access and can plan accordingly to correct the issue.
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