Cruising Sailors Forum Archive

When the idiot skipper turns off the bilge pump.

It's all in the blog, but here's the pertinent part-

"I hear a funny noise"

"What kind of funny noise?" he asks. I describe it and he says it sounds like the bilge pump and to lift the floor board to check. I took a handy dandy walkie talkie with me and yep, sure enough, water in the bilge, but just a small amount and the pump wasn't cycling off. Dave decided to just turn the pump off from the engine room.... as a small amount of water returned to the bilge we didn't worry too much. We laughed about the comercial with the German Coast Guard "Vat are you sinking about?" and I went back to bed and Dave went to finish watching his movie.

I didn't hear him come to bed a while later, but I did hear Gertie jump off the bed somewhere in my foggy sleep and thought I heard "SPLASH" my brain needed to work that out and then I sat bolt upright... thought, no, it couldn't have splashed... I turned on the flashlight and our center stateroom had about 8" of water flooding it! The floor boards covering the hall bilge and our bilge were floating.

"David! We're flooded!"

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