AKA high Water Alarm
Picture this: your sailing along at night.
An alarm goes off.
NOTE: alarms never seem go off during the day.
It’s the high water alarm telling you that there is water / liquid somewhere it shouldn’t be and enough that it is a concern (not condensation).
Water belongs on the outside of the boat. Let the detective work begin…
Where exactly might the water be?
Port, starboard, bow (front) or aft (back).
To find this out you will have to go into each cabin and check the hatch, which is usually under a sleeping person.
This, my friends is the problemo. You have to check everywhere. Rarely is it the first place you look.
And that’s how it becomes the high ‘anxiety’ alarm.
Every sailor knows exactly what I’m talking about here.
We fixed that! And by we I mean Stevo.
Example 1: high anxiety alarm:
Here’s what we did.
We ran individual wires to each pump, then back to the panel indicator lights
This required over 30m of wire that needed to be fished through the hull.
A lot of bilge yoga and crawling.
The navigational panel also had to be modified to accommodate the four separate lights
Here’s the finished product:
No more guessing.
Yay! You’ve found the LOCATION of the intrusion.
Now you have to find the source.
The quick litmus test for the clear water is:
Tastes / Smells sweet:
Engine coolant, indicating you’ve lost all the coolant in your engine.
Fresh water:
Internal leak of your holding tank.
Salty:
Seawater, the outside is getting in.
In the event that the water is brown…you guessed it (don’t taste it ) the black water tank is leaking.
These multiple indicator lights make finding the real problem quicker.
This way you can focus your anxiety to something more worthy.
knot anchored 