Quote:
Originally Posted by kareem korn
You really want to keep water from inside the hull? Quit drilling holes in your kayak. You want all that crap, buy a boat. Most got into kayaking for the simplicity of it. What's wrong with the bucket in the milk crate on the outside of the kayak, or the bait tube (again on the outside).
I've never had water in the hull with the exception of getting caught in the surf. The manufactures seals on the manufactures molded openings are suffencient to keep most of the water out.
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Wow, bold font...eyes rolling...sarcasm...welcome to the forum.
Turns out paddling a boat is a bit tricky due to their size. Its also a bit tougher to sit next to a big boiler or just outside the surfline on a boat than a yak, thus I'll stick with the kayak. These mods are all safe and easy to do and redundant safety features should be in your repertoire whether you have any mods on your kayak or not. Even with a rod holder or even just a hatch, the hull is opened up and things could go south, though like other mods, they typically do not. Nothing wrong with a bait tube at all, I have one. I also have a bait bucket that I float tube with. But I believe this discussion was on "Electric Bilge Pump"s and thus that is what I discussed. Just trying to keep on topic.
Also turns out that MOST automatic bilge pumps have 2 positive wires so that you can run it in BOTH auto AND manual if you wish. If the switch in the manual line fails, it is bypassed by the auto-function and the pump still works. You can also switch it to manual whenever you wish if there is only a scant amount of water that isn't enough to turn the auto function on but that you would still like to get rid of. They also have a test switch as another redundant feature to make sure the auto function is working without filling your hull with water. AND no check valve required, its in the pump. Its a pretty solid set up is all I was saying.
As far as a plug, you can put it in, but my point is that its entirely unnecessary if the tubing is properly ran. You could put a hose up to that mushroom head outlet and turn it on and with the check valve in the bilge, you'll be there for a while trying to swamp the yak. Splashing the port while paddling isn't going to result in any more water in your hull than splashing water into the rod holders on your deck, and this is especially true if your tubing is run above the outlet at some point.
Sorry if it came off like I was knocking anyone's ideas or setup. I tried to make that clear by saying "everyone thinks their's is the one". They are all great ideas and I was just throwing out my two cents. Kareem, no hard feelings, different strokes for different folks and I like having a bait tank that I don't have to prime and that is relatively low maintenance. But yeah, its even easier to prime and even lower maintenance to just have a bait tube. I get it.
Dgax...I am running everything off of a single 12V 18 a-hr (the thing is massive) battery. I've tested it with EVERYTHING (FF, bait tank, bilge) running in the pool for quite a while (a few hours) and the battery still had lots of charge and nothing sounded/looked like it was slowing down. Like I said, this was all really recently redone and I'm looking forward to getting it on the water for some real testing. Doing the math, the FF and bait tank should run continuously longer than I could spend on the water, but if I planned to stay especially long, I could take along the second battery pack that I have. If after fishing it for a while I find that power is an issue, I have a couple of 12v 7a-hr batteries that I used in my old setup that I can rig to be dedicated to the bilge only. We shall see and I'll post the results...