Our dinghy, Tooth, doesn't have a garboard plug so he has to live floating in the water. If Tooth were out of the water, the weight of the rainwater would blow the hull open. Instead of dealing with a disastrous dinghy repair every time it rains, we leave Tooth in the water where he can fill and simply sink into the water a bit further until I can pump him out.
When you live on the rainy East Coast of the United States, this almost daily routine quickly becomes a tedious chore when you have to pump out the rainwater with a hand pump or hand bailer. When you walk down the pier heading to your boat after a long days work, the last thing you want to do is deal with this.
The dinghy is sitting a few inches deeper as it has filled up with rainwater during the downpour that occurred earlier today. Since I was not in the mood to pump Tooth out, I set up my handy electric bilge pump.
The electric pump is a self contained battery powered pump that takes all the effort out of the job. I simply hook the hose over the side of the dinghy which holds the pump in position and turn it on. The pump will suck the water out and slowly get the job done without me breaking a sweat!
As the dinghy begins to empty, the pump will start to draw in air. To remedy this, I simply push down on the gunwale with my feet to tip the dinghy and collect the water in a smaller area with more height. This keeps the pump submerged and continues to suck the water right out of the dinghy.
After a while, Tooth is floating on his unloaded waterline once again with no major effort on my behalf. To get the last bit of water out of the hull, I will tip the hull and scoop it up with a hand bailer. After using the pump, you will only need to do about 2 to 3 insignificant scoops to get the last bit of water out of the hull.
