Lesson learned quickly!

[Don L]

Some, maybe most, insurers require a plan for absentee owners that live X number of miles away from the boat. Like someone to physically check the boat periodically. If you live near the boat I haven’t heard of that happening.

Have had 4 insurers, none have ever asked such a thing

 

[Don L]

We used Duramax in the traditional stuffing boxes in our last boat, no drips after initial breakin period.

I am using the DuraMaxx and after the first 2 hours it just stopped dripping. Near as I can underway there is some leakage that I can not even see to count. The packing gland is not even tight.

I installed packing after getting tired of the "dripless" seal failing and breaking. And of course if they do you can not really do anything when it does. Changing to the packing gland was actually more expensive than buying another mechanical seal system.

 

[Don L]

Some, maybe most, insurers require a plan for absentee owners that live X number of miles away from the boat. Like someone to physically check the boat periodically. If you live near the boat I haven’t heard of that happening.

Have had 4 insurers, none have ever asked such a thing

 

[RT Firefly]

Greetings,
A small amount of water in our bilge has never bothered me. It's there. IF it starts getting a bit funky, I simply give it a bit of a wash and vacuum it out. No, never any oil or petroleum products.


I've used GFO packing for years and like Mr. C (post #27) have never experienced any problems. We DO monitor stuffing box temperatures as part of our regular ER checks (about every 3 or 4 hours while underway on longer passages)


All of the above should be in the past tense as our trawler is under new ownership. I suspect the dependable old style stuffing box might be already changed over to the "better"? drip-less system. Some of his "improvements" have me scratching my head but...

 

[Hippocampus]

From what I understand if you have a claim insurance company companies will do what they can to avoid a payout. If they can claim the sinking was due to owner’s negligence you may find yourself having to fight to get payment. So there maybe no explicitly said need for yacht management or periodic visits or replacing dripless devices in accordance to manufacturer’s recommendations but think all may subject you to risk. Would suggest before accepting mine or anyone’s opinion speak directly with your underwriter and get their advice. Ideally in print.

 

[Mako]

Greetings,
A small amount of water in our bilge has never bothered me. It's there. IF it starts getting a bit funky, I simply give it a bit of a wash and vacuum it out. No, never any oil or petroleum products.

Back when I was young and knew everything in the world, I created a super-cleaner for my bilge by generously mixing bleach and ammonia.

And yep, I'm still alive today.

 

[diver dave]

Properly maintained PSS seal is excellent, and not dependent on the shaft for sealing. ....

sort of. My PSS leaked when the shaft slipped forward. There were no divots drilled to capture the coupler set screws.

 

[sunchaser]

Have had 4 insurers, none have ever asked such a thing

We live far away from our boat. Common sense says have a boat watcher. Our insurance requests it too.
When leaving our vessel for a few weeks in AK the Harbor Master wants to know who’s watching our vessel.

Our vessel has 4 different bilge areas. Any bilge water raises a question or two and rightly so. Never once have the PSS seals raised a question. But they are installed by the book. PSS seals are not plug and play though. Thus once your boating agenda and care and maintenance attentiveness are established pick your mechanical and electrical setups to suit.

 

[Comodave]

Have had 4 insurers, none have ever asked such a thing

I didn’t say that all do. We have been long distance owners but it was a while ago. We had one insurer ask us who was monitoring the boat when we weren’t there, I said the marina checks each boat every day, they accepted that. And the marina did check each boat every day because I saw them doing it.

 

[Art]

In wooden boats I used to have tolerance for slight amount of water in bilge... because, wood joints can seep. In fiberglass boats I have no tolerance for water in bilge... fiberglass with bilge water = leak ... of some sort - period!

 

[Delta Riverat]

It did present a problem for me a few months ago when I found close to a foot of water in the bilge. had to be about 200 gallons. Two bilge pumps, one manual and the other automatic but the switch failed.

Now both automatic (and tested) with the deep one on a cycle counter.

Next I'm gonna re-pack with that Teflon or GFO stuff. I'm sure I have old flax.

 

[Slowmo]

I have a pair of the PSS units which were replaced in 2019 but they have not required adjustment yet. That could be a function of hours, with CoVID and Canada being closed a couple years we just didn't run that far. In any case I was warned up front to keep on eye on those PSS units. As my surveyor said, he'd never seen a packing gland sink a boat but he'd seen driplesss seals do just that.

 

[ronobrien]

You might check but I think that the set screws are a one time only so they should be replaced not retightened.

It is possible that they had a thread locking product on them, which is one time use. If you put the "Blue" Lok-tite on them for re-use it will be fine.

 

[ronobrien]

I have the old stuffing boxes, but with PTFE packings in them. Probably a couple of drops a min, never heat, never adjust, this stuff is amazing.

Many years ago I ran the maintenance dept of a liquid asphalt tank farm. We used cotton/wax/graphite packing in the asphalt pumps and had to repack them every 2 weeks on the high use pumps. We switched to the "new" PTFE and it lasted almost an entire season. 3X the cost but lasted 8X longer. I'm sure it has only improved since then.