Selfbailers, open or shut while mooring?

[Graham W]

Do you know if it is straightforward to fit the replacement seals?

The Andersen 'New Large' externally-mounted bailer in my BR20's sump finally started to leak quite badly, more than five years after installation. You can see from the photo below why this was happening - compared to its replacement, the old seal had been compressed so much that it was bound to let water in.

Replacing the seal is fairly simple, using the instructions to be found here http://www.optistuff.com/info/faq/instructions/ANDERSEN_BAILER_REPAIR.pdf. The old seal was easily peeled off from the underside in one piece. However, the adhesive on the new seal wasn't strong enough to keep it in place and needed to be reinforced. I used a bit of extra edge sealer, which seems to have done the job. From the above instructions it looks like replacement of seals is easier on the externally-mounted versions of the bailer. Which, for whatever reason, appear to work better than the newer style internally-mounted bailers.

[Julian Swindell]

This seems different to the balers I have. I discovered that the sliding part of the ballet will simply pull right up into the boat, coming of its mounting. At first I thought I had broken it, but then found that all of them worked that way, and with a bit of care, they can be slotted back into place. They still leak though. Haven't thought about replacing the seal as the leaking is not much problem.

[sven@tryding.se]

I will replace seal since the ballast bailers are leaking. I expect it to solve my problem.

[Colin Morley]

My experience of being on a mooring with no cover or cover on is that the sump in front of the transom always fills with water. It does not matter, even if with water ballast if it slightly runs over the cockpit sole. You just quickly pump it out. That assumes you have a Whale pump fitted which I think is a vital piece of kit.

[sven@tryding.se]

I have been using a manual whale pump until now, for the sump. I just bought an electric version that will be able to empty the water ballast in 5 minutes.