markpierce
Master and Commander
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2010
- Messages
- 12,557
- Location
- USA
- Vessel Name
- Carquinez Coot
- Vessel Make
- penultimate Seahorse Marine Coot hull #6
Someone just received the honor of being first on my ignore list.
Mark, that looks like a sea chest. It is a great way to get the intakes where they can be serviced from inside the boat. Does this one have a strainer integrated into it, or are the strainers down stream of the sea cocks?
At first glance it looks to be a horizontally-mounted sea strainer of the type commonly used on an engine's raw water intake. Unless your photo is rotated 90 degrees, I'm surprised to see one of these --- if that's what it is--- mounted sideways.
Normally they are mounted vertically so the top can be removed to pull out and clean the strainer that is inside. That way the water in the filter body doesn't spill out into the bilge.
The typical construction of these filters--- one of the better manufacturers being Groco which is the type we have--- has bronze ends with a heavy glass body. Four (usually) bronze rods run the length of the filter body and serve to clamp the end caps and the glass body together.
There is a bronze lid or cap on the top that can be removed, on ours with a big central wing nut, to give access to the filter element inside. The metal filter element, usually a long stainless steel "basket," is mounted inside and can be lifted out for routine cleaning.
The filter is intended to capture sand, mud, weed, etc that might find its way up through the intake through-hull and prevent it from getting to the raw water pump on the engine where it could clog the impeller chamber or even damage or break the impeller.
Whoa.
Run away from that boat.
It's a sea strainer in really bad shape. I think the photo is on its side, as noted by someone else. I also agree, stay away from this boat, if you are looking to buy.
At first, I thought it was a sea strainer. Then I rotated the picture 180 degrees and noticed the 2 wires. 12V or bonding wires? Could it be that the pic is upside down and is a very poorly mounted and maintained raw water pump?
... I tend to talk alot cause i learned as a kid that the only dumb question is one that dosent get asked. And my friend, let me tell you this forum has some of the finest trawler minds in the world as members and i Will personnally defend any of em agaisnt all detractors. Shoot, i will even defend the ones at this forum i butt heads with. I mean they do have issues, but, in my opinion they are still the best.Has to be a raw water strainer. Bfloyd, if you're seeking input on this stuff about a boat you're looking at, I would imagine there are HUNDREDS of other issues with the boat. Do you have a surveyor, or anyone else looking at the boat with you that's knowledgeable enough to answer these questions?
hmm.. recalling another post I saw tonight about "Titles" , Bfloyd, you're a Guru in a few months on the site, and I am only a Senior Member after 5 years. I guess I need to get busy posting more stuff....
No it appears to be a Perko Fig. 493 strainer. I relatively pricey strainer at that. However it is needing a little maintenance currently. Along with everything else in the picture.
Is this boat abandoned?
If so, I'm mighty happy with my sea strainer.
How does above the waterline have anything to do with overflowing with the top off? Don't you close the seacock when you open it anyway?
opps, after reading the first couple of comments i forgot about the wires. Thgis thing when i saw it yelled at me BEWARE THERE ARE PROBLEMS HERE. No it is some kind of welectrical device not just a strainer
And thank you for your observation
All the corrosion indicates to me its ready to be replaced anyway, is that correct?
H'mmm ... aren't you the same guy who just posted "I've been boating for a gazillion years in all kinds of vessels up to about 60 feet ..."?
So in all those gazillion years on such a range of vessels, you've never seen a sea stainer?
Looks like a troll to me ...
It just goes to show that you can do something for years and never understand what you are doing. Some folks are like that.
Looks the same as mine, without the salt and kooties. Mines laying down too, I haven't tried to clean it out yet, as I can see through the glass it's not clogged.
your right. But, I thought i had seen everything till i saw this corroded thing anbd my mind went blank. Two seconds after my cell phone pix posting i realized how dumb......or maybe blind i was. I do thank all for there comments
K Sanders said:
"You might consider moving that strainer.On my boat the sea strainers are all mounted so that the top of them is above the water line.
Actually all the boats I've owned were like that. The strainer top has always been above the waterline. Is that a "standard", or is it just my boats."
Why is it a problem to have strainers below the WL? All 4 or mine are below the WL (on a sea chest) as well as engines and genset RW pumps. You have no choice but to have strainers below the WL on boats with deep draft. Working valves make it safe IMHO.
Our boat did not have sea strainers when we bought it. We had them installed as soon as the boat came off the truck. Both of them were installed vertically with the tops just above the waterline.
Thats understandable, your boat is a GB built in Taiwan and this boat is a DeFever built in Santa Anna California.
*sigh* That's bonding wire.
I have seen a lot of strainers mounted sideways...especially by commercial guys...makes them easy to drain for freezing situations and it allows them to be emptied of sand more easily.
All Ford Lehman 120s were red when shipped from Lehman in New Jersey. I'm not sure what color the FL135s were when shipped but I believe they all had a chromed rocker box cover.
There is one exception I know of to the Lehmans-are-red rule. After several years of buying marninzed FL120s directly from Lehman, American Marine building its Grand Banks boats in Singapore decided in the early 1970s that they could save money by buying the Ford of England Dorset diesel directly from Ford in the UK, then buy the Lehman marinization kit from Lehman in New Jersey, and install the marinization kit on the engine(s) on the factory floor in Singapore next to the boat it or they were going into.
Since they had to paint the engines themselves they chose two colors to use. One was a slightly metallic olive green and the other was a sort of yellow-gold. I have seen examples of both and the olive green was actually quite nice. (see photo).
After a few years of doing this they determined that it was actually costing them more to put the Lehman marinization kits on themselves than to simply buy the already-marinized engine from Lehman. So they went back to doing this and the engines in Grand Banks boats became red again.
The FL120s that had the marinization kits installed in Singapore are virtually identical to the FL120s that had the kits installed by Lehman themselves other than the paint color.
The engines in our 1973 GB were originally the olive green as shown in the photo (which is not our boat). This is evidenced by the paint on the engine mount supports and other out of the way spots on the engine. But at some point and for some reason a previous owner decided he didn't like the olive color or it was starting to look bad, and so had both engine repainted in place with Alpine (Detroit) Green. Which I actually quite like.
But if the engines in our boat looked like the one in the photo I wouldn't mind it. I do not care for American Marine's yellow-gold color at all.
For about the 573rd time, Grand Banks are not, and never have been, built in Taiwan.
My apology Marin, Homg Kong is not Taiwan...opps, i mean sinapore. SINAPORE! Got it Britt??.....smile...i hope i do