Bilge warning and alarms

I had an “alarming” incident this spring, returning from my first real run after entering the river I went to manually run my bilge pump as I usually do to get what the float shuts off before only to find it was already running, more concerning though was my high bilge pump was running, it’s several inches higher in the keel, and has never run on its own. I quickly popped the hatch to find my raw water hose had blown mostly off the raw water pump I recently installed and was rapidly filling the bilge with water, it was already within a couple inches of the bottom of the generator. Luckily I caught it before anything really bad happened, shut the engine down, closed the seacock and went to my slip on the remaining engine. My 3,700gph pump quickly cleared to its base but it took 10-15 minutes for the small keel pump to shut off. I believe this happened within a few minutes based of the amount of water the pumps on my Cummins are capable of moving.

This was motivation to get some better indication and a true high water alarm set up. The way Chris Craft put my bilge pump switches on the side of the helm they’re not visible from the helm. First thing I did was install a Rule float switch in the keel, as high as I was comfortable, about 4” below the generator towards the back third of the boat. I used a piece of pvc board glued to the hull to mount the ditch, then it’s two wires back to the helm. Everything else was done in the helm. I have 3 bilge pumps along the centerline, a whale gulper on a hose to get most the water out of the keel, then 2 3700gph rule gold pumps, one mounted at the transom and one mid ship. Add the high water and I needed 4 indicators. For those I decided to use Blue Seas indicator lamps, they’re small, visible but not obnoxiously bright as I do run the boat at night. Used a green for the Whale as its a service pump and does run occasionally, that distinguishes it from the other 3. I drilled 4 3/16” holes in the dash vertically lining the indicators up in the sequence the pumps are mounted in the boat. To do it again I would have spaced the holes further apart as the last hole the drill walked and 2 holes became one. Not the best looking but functional. Wiring the lights for the bilge pumps was easy, just hooked to the automatic side of the switch and the ground lead that feeds the existing indicators in their switches. The high water alarm I picked up power from a source I knew was always on, the keel bilge pump. Along with the indicator that got a piezo alarm I picked up off Amazon for $5 for the high water alarm. It’s mounted right to the back of the panel near the indicators. So far aside from my drilling error, I’m pleased with this installation and hope none of the red lights ever come on again.