Live well / washdown?

[Mike Answeeney]

Good idea or bad idea?

[RickK]

This think it is a "no-brainer".  Raw water washdown will save your freshwater supply plus, as the photo shows, the thru hull can feed a live well pump too.  Johnson is a great system and that pump has the power to blast away stuff on your boat.  I have one of these for raw water washdown. For fresh water, you don't need a real powerful pump because you'll go through your fresh water supply very quickly (5 gal/min ) - I have a 2.5gal/min pump for that, with different hose so I don't mix raw and fresh in the same hose.
Since you're still in the building phase, see if you can work something like this into the build:

This is from Rabud.com. A nice system to store the hose and it's ready to use by opening the access cover and pulling out the hose. If I have any complaints about my raw and fresh water wash systems is that I have a place to store the hoses until I want to use them,then I have to take them out of storage, connect them and now, they're laying around in the way until I store them again.  Maybe you can utilize the unused back corner areas under the deck of your boat to store these hoses.
Another thing is that the bulkhead connector in the Johnson kit has a hose shut-off built in.  When you're not using the system and the hose is disconnected, you shut this off otherwise you'll get water from it when underway.  Both fresh water from your tank and raw water through the thru-hull does the same thing, so you'll need access to that shut-off.
That might be another reason to use the Rabud type storage tubes - you don't have to disconnect the hoses.

[LilRichard]

Are you asking about that brand, or about whether to install a raw water washdown?  RW is a necessity in my opinion... and there are several livewell pumps available that are "dual port" meaning you can tee a washdown pump off of the livewell pump housing.  Whatever you do, make sure you use a seacock before the pump.

Oh, and 550 gph for a livewell will not support a lot of bait.  I have purchased an 1100gph pump to feed my livewell setup (which will be a hammerhead livewell).

[John Jones]

IMHO like all "combos" it is a compromise.  A livewell pump is made for flow (gph) and a washdown pump is made for pressure (psi).  I tried a Sureflo Bait Sentry 1100 gph pump as a washdown pump.  Using a 20' coiled hose I can pee harder than the bait pump puts through the hose.  I switched the washdown to a true washdown pump and it performs much better.  

Rich, I had problems with the 1100 bait pump also.  It put out more water than a 1-1/2 gravity drain could handle.  Constant overflow onto the deck.  I ran it choked off with a valve for a while, then replace it with an 800 gph.  Still plenty of water.

[LilRichard]

JJ- where is your livewell?  I was concerned about that myself... was thinking of running double 1.5" drains.  Wondering if part of your problem is the actual drain design coming off the livewell itself, or hose/seacock capacity?

[John Jones]

Rich, I started out with the livewell in the front section of the coffin box with a 1.5" overflow screen and hose coming out inside the coffin, down through the deck and straight out the side.  No restrictions, full 1/5" all the way.  The thru hull was well above the waterline so no seacock.  With the severe overflow, I thought maybe the screen was restricting the gravity flow too much and added a second screen and used a "Y" to tie the overflow screens to the drain.  No joy.  There was too much splashing with the well in the front of the boat anyway.  Beat the hell out of the bait and kept everyone wet.  Now I have a round 27 gal under the leaning post.  I put in a standpipe type drain through the bottom of the well using a 1.5" right angle thru hull and down under the deck.  There was just enough space to run the 1.5" drain along the top of the gas tank.  I had to lube the hose with wire pulling lubricant to get it through the gap.  I get water from the standard bronze scoop strainer.



It is facing forward so when running a pump is really not necessary.  To make sure the drain worked this time, I installed a second scoop strainer facing the rear.  While on plane you can hear the damn thing sucking.  Sounds like a power flush commode that is stuck    The only time I have had an overflow since is when some small bait went down the standpipe and plugged the scoop strainer.  I used a dremel with a cutter wheel and removed a couple of the bars from the drain strainer.  No more clogging.

[RebelYell]

..

I don't like the idea of putting any holes through the hull of my boat for any purpose....PERIOD.

I want to keep my 200 Osprey simple and elegant. I have one (1) hole in my hull and that is high up and near the upper rear starboard side...for the bilge pump.

Want to do a washdown ? Get a three gallon bucket. I have one stored under the casting deck and it stows away just fine there. It really does work suprisingly well and usually I can wash away just about any amount of fish funk with 1-2 buckets.

JMHO.  

[John Jones]

Holes in the hull done properly make the entire area stronger than original.

[LilRichard]

Um... how exactly do you keep bait alive?

 :(

[RebelYell]

Um... how exactly do you keep bait alive?

 :(

My bait well is original Aquasport 1990 vintage and is not plumbed to the outside. I just put a couple of three gallon buckets of the "water du jour" in there and the pump in the bottom continuously recirculates it. Usually just use the H2O that the bait comes in at the shop.

I do fresh water minnows, shiners, salt water shrimp, pilchards, etc and never have a problem. If I am fishing overnight I'll scoop off some water from the top of the well and put in some fresh from the outside. For the minnows, I control the temp by putting in a little ice every so often so that the water stays cool; for saltwater shrimps, pilchards etc temperature isn't as much of a problem.

I have a Rule 350GPH pump on suction cups in the bottom of my well wired directly into my switch panel on a fuse. I bought it at WalMart for ~$20.00 and it works just fine....