It's an important system on our boat as we don't have refrigeration. We use block ice and we're not the tidiest icebox in the harbor. Stuff spills for obvious reasons. It's nice to easily get the melt water out of the icebox. It's also as useful for cleaning the icebox. After some hard use (family of four), I usually splash in a couple of buckets of warm water and clean it out with simple green and a sponge. Not only does the sump and pump make this handy, after closing the screw down basket in the galley sink, this pump also blows the drain line in the sink clear. That drain line tends to get constricted on our boat and drain slowly.

I only wish Alden had used better insulation when they built the SS icebox in 1961. Back then, 50 pound ice blocks were the norm.