Show me your bilges

[Kevin Henderson]

After finally resolving my pesky leak of fresh water into the bilge, and re-establishing my good standing membership in the dry bilge club; I decided to take it a step further and give my dry and dusty, albeit dirty bilges a fresh coat of shiny white Interlux Bilgekote.  After some light prepping of the area, the results were amazing!  I still have to get the small bilge area furthest aft but I'm excited about the results.  So much so, I'm looking forward to painting some of the other "nether regions" of the boat that never see daylight.
 
My bilges were never too bad and at times will have a bit of water and get stained.  Regardless, I'm curious about what other bilges may look like so bring them on!!!
Show me your bilges .  

[Ron Hill]

Kevin : Looks Great!  I don't have a picture, mine's clean but isn't as shinny as yours.  

Now every time you find water in a bilge compartment you can figure out what is happening!!  

[mregan]

How did you go about prepping the bilge.  I plan on painting mine in the spring but I want to make sure the Bilgekote holds.

[Kevin Henderson]

I did not go to extremes in prep.  I have always occasionally flushed the bilge area with fresh water and a little liquid Tide and scrubbed away.  Drained, and let it dry.  I followed up later with just some simple green and a scrubbing sponge for a couple of the tuough areas.  Again, after drying, I took a small sanding pad and roughed up the surface just a bit. Vaccumed up any tidbits left over and painted.    

[Steve W10]

Kevin, congrats on your bilge, reminds me of mine 3 years ago.

Unfortunately I don't belong to the dry bilge club, but I am a fan of Bilgecoat.

A word of caution (in my opinion anyway).  The term "light prep" is a precursor to "get ready to do it again".  Through paranoia, I did extensive prep on mine knowing just how important it always is and although the results are not perfect they are pretty good.
EDIT: woops, I missed your second post; I think you did a great job in the prep, sounds like you are going to have a nice bilge for a long time.

I've done most of the inner hull surfaces with BilgeKoat after a thorough cleaning with Spray Nine, thorough rinsing and then thorough cleaning/prep with acetone (at the beginning I used the expensive version by the same guys who make BilgeKoat then went to acetone).  I was very excited, and it wasn't just from the fumes during cleaning    (very important to wear an appropriate mask) about how the solvent cleaned and almost re-flowed the original finish on the inner hull.  I figured it would create an amazing bond with the new finish.  And it did.

After 3 years I am slowly seeing the BilgeKoat flake away ever so slightly, mostly in my wet bilge but also in drier areas I've done.  Areas that remain completely dry are faring very well and still look great and what I like most is that they wipe clean so easily.

I don't regret it, but I'm certainly not as excited as I was 3 years ago.  Nothing is flaking away so much as to clog a bilge pump or anything like that, but it is slowly coming off.

In the dry I expect it will work out better for you.

Steve

[Kevin Henderson]

Amazing results Steve.  I think my next area is going to be back aft as you have shown. 
Curious though... Did you re-run your fresh water hoses somewhere else.. perhaps as Ron Hill had done?  I noticed the 2 conspicuosly empty holes where those hoses would run near the engine. 
You did an awesome job!!! 

[Steve W10]

Thanks Kevin, but you still win with that dry bilge (insert "envious" emoticon).  I've got a few leaking keel bolts so until I drop the keel I don't think it worth any further efforts to dry things up right now.

Short answer to your question is that this image was mid-job; I eventually put them back in the same spot.  I did consider moving them, but one of my efforts was to de-clutter the "under head sink" area so I didn't want to put more hoses under the sole at that location.

That was the year I went nuts with a tonne of projects on the boat in the well-know "while you're there" mode which made lots of sense seeing as I had such great access to everything.

Hopefully this winter I'll get around to putting together some better notes and images of these projects to post.

The prep work for BilgeKoat really sucks but it sure is nice when it's done.

[John Langford]

I used BilgeKoat  as well in the area aft of the engine and around the prop shaft. It still looks great after 4 years despite occasional spray from the shaft seal and drips from fuel filter changes, etc.

I was wondering if brushing on white gel coat might not be as or more effective especially after a good acetone wipe.

[mregan]

Just at the boat today.  Should have taken a picture, it was full of water/ice.  Sucked out about 20 gallons.  Not sure where all the water is coming in from.  From the cabin opening to the bow it's covered with a tarp.  Cockpit is uncovered.  We've had some pretty good rain so far and some heavy winds.  Couple of inches of snow but not too much.  I think most if it is coming in the aft locker. Had a 5 gallon bucket in there and it had a couple of inches of water in it.
What I can't figure out is why during the summer, with the cockpit uncovered, don't I get as much water as in the winter?

Could the bilge pump burn out if it ran too much/froze.  I was able to get all the water/ice out of the bilge.  Played with the float switch and pump wouldn't come on.  May have been frozen or maybe burned out?  Have to investigate when I have more time.

[Stu Jackson]

One of the earliest Mainsheet tech tips was to put weather stripping on the port locker and lazarette covers.  It served to stop water intrusion.  3/8" at ACE Hardware worked for me.

[Ron Hill]

mre : You didn't mention if your mast was up or taken down.  If the mast is up the H2O came right down the center.  There have been Many Many posts on this very topic.

If your bilge pump is still connected, I'm sure both the batteries are down and the bilge pump could be  burned up if the ice formed in the bilge! 

That's why I take the fuse out of the float switch, put some anti freeze in the bilge and go down to the boat after a heavy rain in the winter and hand pump it dry - then start again with antifreeze.

A few thoughts

[Kevin Henderson]

Man I'm sure lucky I don't have to worry about ice in by bilges
Then again... a real "Tip-O-The-Hat"  to all of you that still continue to maintain your boat throughout the winter.

After seeing Steve's pics of the area under the aft cabin, I too decided to go aft.  I moved everything out of the garage, opened up the access covers, hung cables and hoses out of the way, and dug in with some deep cleaning and sanding to prep the surface. 
Here's the finished pic.. I also did the area where the CNG tank is stored.  The pic is not of the best quality since I took it at the last minute with my phone. 

Enjoying our 80 degree winter... BUT... if anyone want's to send some of your rain our way we would really appreciate it.

[Kevin Henderson]

Sorry... forgot to post the pic. 

[mainesail]

After 3 years I am slowly seeing the BilgeKoat flake away ever so slightly, mostly in my wet bilge but also in drier areas I've done.  Areas that remain completely dry are faring very well and still look great and what I like most is that they wipe clean so easily.

I don't regret it, but I'm certainly not as excited as I was 3 years ago.  Nothing is flaking away so much as to clog a bilge pump or anything like that, but it is slowly coming off.

In the dry I expect it will work out better for you.

Steve

This is why I will only ever coat or cover bilges in either:

*Gelcoat

*Barrier coat


There is not a single paint on the market, not even LPU's that will hold up over the long haul to bilge submersion. If you keep your bilge dry then bilge coat can work, if it gets wet it is just like any other paint.... Gelcoat takes 30 seconds mix wax into and roll on, it is the prep that takes longest.......

In my experience gelcoat works best as it is easiest to clean but some folks think the white or gray barrier coat is easier to mix/apply but you BETTER wear a respirator at a bare minimum.. I have been waxing gelcoat for 40 years so never even give it a second thought when doing bilge work.

This is how the factory original rolled on gelcoat holds up..

This pic was taken at 29 years old, she looks exactly the same today at 35 years old...

[Kevin Henderson]

Once again... Mainsail takes our efforts to a level that the rest of us mere mortals can only dream of aspiring to.

Thank You!!