Anyone think something like this should have a place on a yacht in case of emergencies. If you single hand and are on deck you might not notice until there is a serious amount of water in the boat in the event of a through hull or sea cock or hose failing. The pissy bilge pumps normally in the bilge could easily be overwhelmed. Once there is a foot or more of water in the bottom of the boat it can be very hard to find the leak especially if things are floating around.
I was messing around in my boat a couple of days ago and tested my pissy little automatic bilge pump only to found it was not working as it's connection to a bussbar had been broken off.

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julesmoto said..
Anyone think something like this should have a place on a yacht in case of emergencies. If you single hand and are on deck you might not notice until there is a serious amount of water in the boat in the event of a through hull or sea cock or hose failing. The pissy bilge pumps normally in the bilge could easily be overwhelmed. Once there is a foot or more of water in the bottom of the boat it can be very hard to find the leak especially if things are floating around.
I was messing around in my boat a couple of days ago and tested my pissy little automatic bilge pump only to found it was not working as it's connection to a bussbar had been broken off.

Apparently you are not well acquainted with Ozito products.

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UncleBob said..
Apparently you are not well acquainted with Ozito products.

OK (although I have had an ozito drill and angle grinder on my boat for 2 years now which are doing fine and I prefer the lesser power draw of the ozito unit because the batteries would last longer.)

7000 l/hr = 1850gal / hr there's plenty of 2000 gal / hr design bilge pumps available that don't need 240v. Ps over the years I've had a good run out of ozito gear, it's not trade standard but it's ok.

Maybe so but I like that this is portable and if you have an inverter you don't need great big thick power cables to avoid voltage drop wherever you place it in the boat.

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woko said..

I guess it depends how long you haven't noticed it for.
Then again maybe we just need to try this:

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julesmoto said..
Anyone think something like this should have a place on a yacht in case of emergencies. If you single hand and are on deck you might not notice until there is a serious amount of water in the boat in the event of a through hull or sea cock or hose failing. The pissy bilge pumps normally in the bilge could easily be overwhelmed. Once there is a foot or more of water in the bottom of the boat it can be very hard to find the leak especially if things are floating around.
I was messing around in my boat a couple of days ago and tested my pissy little automatic bilge pump only to found it was not working as it's connection to a bussbar had been broken off.

I bought one to empty the last few inches for my pool. The float switch is a pain in the arse, it cuts out with a good 4-6 inches of standing water left to go. I bought the Ozito submersible to do the last few inches my bigger pump couldn't do, now I've bought a wet and dry vac to do the last few inches the Ozito couldn't do.
Having said that, the wet and dry vacuums are awesome. After sanding the whole interior of a mates boat, we got in there with a hose and hosed everything down. Then used a wet and dry vac to get rid of all the filtthy water, worked a treat.
Also used one to get rid of all the hard to get places after a rubbish tiller bearing seal put a foot of water through a mates boat. Big pumps did the muscle work, then wet and dry vac to finish. Fantastic pieces of kit, cheap enough so you can toss it after you've killed it on a big job.

+1 wet vacs are awesome

Good to hear that some have had a good Ozito experience, my experience with the brand has been less than stellar or perhaps less than acceptable would be a better description.

Your better off having tapered wooden plugs attached to your seacocks.
Last year I tried to save a sinking cabin cruiser with my Ozito pump as above. I had a petrol 240v generator in my workboat. I lowered the pump down into the engine room, the water was already over the engine. I flashed up the generator and waited for the water to shoot out! Nothing. I had used the pump previously on a similar job and it was fine. I raced home and pulled down the pump to find the impeller had come off the shaft. The shaft is stainless steel but it had a mild steel nut which had rusted off. I replaced the nut and raced back out to find the boat sitting on the bottom.

That's a bit of a worry about the Ozito pump although I would only be looking to use it once. Maybe paint the nut before I store it on the boat. I do have the plugs attached to the sea cocks but there is still the problem of quickly evacuating a lot of water. And it might not be easy at night whilst single handing to find what is leaking under a foot of water or more. The float switch would of course have to be taped in the upright position so as to be always on.

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UncleBob said..
Good to hear that some have had a good Ozito experience, my experience with the brand has been less than stellar or perhaps less than acceptable would be a better description.

Gotta be lucky sometimes,
ozito jack hammer was working when it got stolen , electric planer ( broke the rubber drive belt eventually as did the makita that's why I got the ozito, tool cheaper than the rubber band ) the demel type tool is also a winner ( the accessories are crap, I use a carbide burr to rearrange holes in steel ) the random orbital palm sanders do a lot of work before they give up ( the random goes before the orbital if you know what I mean ) the direct knock off of the rule 360 gph bilge pump I have in the primary bilge of the work boat has been giving good service for 12 months ( the rule gave up after the big rain event last year ) the only other ozito I have is the wet vac, the first one did a stellar job sucking 60yrs of Detroit detritus from the bilge of the work boat, when it died I wasn't disappointed, I replaced it pronto and the replacement smoked straight up ? Turns out my new old generator is pumping out 300volts & thats what cooked em both. Like I said gotta be lucky sometimes. When I worked as a carpenter all my tools were makita, the only survivor is a 7 1/4 saw, and now days I can't get a blade of the shelf that fits, I have to have a new one bored to fit the arbor. Battery tools I'm in the ryobi camp only because of the battery/ skin scam, but I see the tradie boys tote Milwaukee or Makita

Jules look at the graph : the submersible ozito would struggle with an inch an a half diameter failure half a metre under the waterline, from the start, if you realised you had substantial water in your bilge you are way behind the graph and of coarse the more the boat sinks the more GPH will ingress, find the hole jamb a carrot or a potato in it and grab a bucket........

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woko said..
Jules look at the graph : the submersible ozito would struggle with an inch an a half diameter failure half a metre under the waterline, from the start, if you realised you had substantial water in your bilge you are way behind the graph and of coarse the more the boat sinks the more GPH will ingress, find the hole jamb a carrot or a potato in it and grab a bucket........

Thanks. The only upside of the ozito then is the power draw so maybe the larger branded unit would be the go. At the end of the day I guess I just have to decide how much random stuff I want to carry on the boat which may never get used.

Yeh random stuff & were did I put it ! A good auxiliary pump that doubles for fire fighting/ anchor chain, deck wash, repelling unwanted visitors and backing up the bilge system, with its own reliable engine, or perhaps driven from the ships engine, Random stuff I know

The reality is that even on a ship with almost unlimited power and HUGE capacity bilge pumps, they rarely keep them afloat.

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garymalmgren said..
The reality is that even on a ship with almost unlimited power and HUGE capacity bilge pumps, they rarely keep them afloat.

Yeah for me it's just about buying time when I am actually on the boat and could plug a leak rather than a total solution (not that a catch all solution is possible).I don't have a high water alarm and my hearing is poor anyway.

Any extra bilge pump is better than none. I like that this one would be independent and movable (although perhaps not as independent as my T'ed off engine raw water intake). My inverter is mounted quite high and the cables that go to it come off the top of the batteries and then go upwards as opposed to the leads for the other bilge pumps which go downwards from the batteries and one of which is threaded who knows where in the boat under the internal liner.

Ironically the thing that broke the wire going into a little busbar for one of my two fixed 12 volt bilge pumps was a big ass anode (weight) which I added to the end of the manual bilge pump intake hose that was leaning against it in a confined space. Running a nice dry dusty bilge means that I never noticed.

Anyway back to my original question. Does anyone think it has enough merit to carry one on the boat? Sounds like Ramona does but only in a workboat.

I have one at home from when I drained and painted my pool decades ago (still works-not Chinese) but what attracted me was that the ones I saw in Bunnings are more compact (but the hose for it wouldn't be).

No the Ozito pump is hanging up in my garage. It's for other peoples boats. If you buy one change the nut to a nyloc SS nut.
My bilge pump layout is a dedicated solar panel, controller, 12v lead battery, Water Witch switch and a Chinese 800 gph pump [also have a spare]. That's on all the time and is separate from the ships 12v power.
The rest of my bilge pump set up is two manual pumps as per the offshore racing regs with one pump with a Chinese 2500gph pump installed as a strum box. It's just below the cabin sole well clear of the bilge water and is only there as a last resort. It is on a manual switch. It would hopefully slow the ingress while I fix the problem. Plug in the seacock,sail pulled over the hole etc. These Chinese pumps are very good but care needs to be used selecting an appropriate sized fuse. They draw a lot on start up. I'm expecting 50 years from the large pump!

240VAC in a boat flooding with conductive salty sea water could be a worry.

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Trek said..
240VAC in a boat flooding with conductive salty sea water could be a worry.

I agree. The inverter would fail first anyway as a safety precaution! Better off buying a couple of quality buckets.