Question on mounting a portable bilge pump

[George Bond]

Good evening folks!
I bought one of these a few months ago and they work great. Uses 6 AA batteries and will absolutely pump out all the water and goo from the transom area. They are only $18 on Amazon. I live in a salt water area and this boat mostly stays on my floating jon boat dock. I am doing annual maintenance on the motor, trailer, and the boat including replacing my low back seats with high back seats. The problem is I left the pump in the bottom of the boat and salt water or rainwater trashed it. So I bought two more to replace it. My question is.. have any of you mounted horizontally one of these on a jon boat? I want to probably put it on the inside transom via clips or something like that in order to be able to grab it when needed and not have to store it elsewhere when the boat is not in use. Thanks and please advise!

 

[FuzzyGrub]

I have something similar from HF. A fluid transfer pump. I don't use it as a bildge pump, though. For me, it probably would not work well for that. There is normally some debris in the bildge water that would probably quickly jam the pump. Your boat looks new, without any accumulated "gunk", so probably won't be an issue for a while. If it died at the bottom of the boat, it will only be a matter of time until it sees a torential downpour that will probably do it in.

If you have a deep cycle battery in the boat, I would look to hook up a true bildge pump that has sensing capabilities. This would be more useful when you are out in heavy weather. I couldn't tell if the boat has a drain plug or not. If not, install one, and leave it open while it sits on top of your dock. Thats what I see most people do for boats that can't flip over easily or because of other stuff installed.

 

[Tin Man]

As mentioned, I would mount a permanent bilge pump. Look at the Rule low profile auto sensing models. BPs are an important safety item on any boat.

 

[MrGiggles]

I guess if you were going to go through the trouble of mounting something like that, why not just mount a permanent bilge pump that's designed for that application? You can just loop the discharge over the transom, if you don't want to cut a hole in the boat. You can get a little 12V lithium battery for $50 now that weighs about as much as a bottle of water, and you can also run other stuff of it.

As mentioned, it's a pretty important part of the boat, I wouldn't want my life to depend on AA batteries, or have them be potentially the only thing keeping my boat from ending up on the bottom of the lake.

 

[loosescrew]

If I had to mount something like that battery pump I'd use velcro. The kind that they give you with a new EZ Pass transponder. two pieces would hold it just fine.

I do agree though, if its going to sit in the water it needs to have a permanent, automatic bilge pump so it don't end up sinking while unattended.

 

[airshot]

For the price of two of yours, you could have bought a real bilge pump...better to be safe than sorry. I would not trust the electric water sensors, my pumps have built in float switches and never an issue. I can assure you, those AA batteries won't pump long in an emergency !!