Seacock Strainers

[Lance Jones]

How many of you saltwater sailors have strainers installed over your seacock intakes? If you do, on which intakes are they installed?

Thanks in advance?

[Ed Shankle]

Just on the engine raw water intake.

[ghebbns]

Same for me - just the raw water intake.

[Kevin Henderson]

Ditto.. Raw water intake only. 

Inquiring minds need to know... Why do you ask?   

Other than some owners having the sea water intake for the foot pump in the galley (many have converted to fresh water), I would see no need to have a filter on a seacock for anything being an "out take" to the sea.   

[Lance Jones]

For the inquiring minds...
I will be moving to saltwater from freshwater. I don't have a strainer/screen externally mounted on the outside of the hull. My air conditioner instructions say they recommend one for the water intake. So, I was wondering if anyone has some insight into where they should be located.

[TonyP]

Lance

I would follow Mainsails advice and NOT fit an external strainer as they will foul (unseen) with growth, paint or debris.
There is a link on this site for pics on his site as well as an explanation.
Just a Forspar or similar strainer internally is the way to go. Easy to clean and maintain whenever you are on your boat.

cheers
Tony

[Kevin Henderson]

Yep...
Like these.. 

http://www.pbase.com/mainecruising/external_strainers

[Stu Jackson]

I would follow Mainsails advice and NOT fit an external strainer as they will foul (unseen) with growth, paint or debris.
There is a link on this site for pics on his site as well as an explanation.

It's in the "101 Topics" sticky.

[r_bond]

Hi Lance - we have strainers on engine raw water and air conditioning intake.  Both are internal.

Rusty
"Trinity", 1993

[Kevin Henderson]

Sorry Lance... I should have read your orioginal post more closely. 
Just to clarify... my raw water intake filter (strainer) is internal.  NOT!!! external to the seacock.   

[Ken Juul]

Agree....internal only.  It can be a pain, the AC strainer always clogs at 3am during august when the nettles are everywhere, but easy enough to clean.  Build up has been a problem this year.  All the strainers just unscrew off the thru hulls.  I carry one of those long Aluminium gutter nails in the tool box, if flow slows down, unscrew and use the nail to clean from the inside.  Ron prefers a piece of dowel...either works.  If the outside grill clogs you are going swimming to clear.

[Ron Hill]

Lance : I've posted this many times before.
I've had 3 stoppages from hydrilla and sea grass in the past 25 years.  They were all in the first 10 of those 25 years.
 
Then I caulked a simple round bronze strainer on the outside of the hull for the engine raw water intake.  In the past 15 years NO Problem.  I said caulked as I could take the strainer assembly off and open the thru hull and poke the strainer off the hull - if necessary. 

To date it has never been necessary as no clogs!!  You be the judge.  A thought                                                       

[Lance Jones]

Thanks all! Good info. I like Ron's suggestion as it offers a good compromise. As I will be in Florida waters, any Florida members have experience with or without strainers?

[John Sheehan]

Lance,

Rusty who responded earlier, and I both live in Gulf Breeze, FL.  near Pensacola.  Like Rusty, I just have the internal strainers for the engine cooling and the A/C unit.  So far (11 years and 11,000 km) I have never had any problems with the inlets plugging.  There have been numerous times where the strainers would get full of sea grass and need to be cleaned, but that can be done from inside the boat.  The pictures that Mainsail showed are very similar to ones I have seen here with external strainers.  My suggestion would be to not worry about an external strainer and just keep the internal ones clean.  If that doesn't work then you can always add an external one later.

Looking forward to meeting you when you get down here.

John

[jgatherton]

Lance,
Engine raw water intake, AC water intake and cockpit salt water wash down connection (as it was before we moved to the lake!)