West Marine Manual Bilge Pump
This is a hand pump for pumping out the bilge of a small boat. I'm sure it is good for that purpose. However, what it does better than anything else I have ever tried is to pump off a sports field after a downpour. Many fields have no power access for electric pumps. With this hand pump you can dig a small hole, let the water drain into it and then pump it off quickly, into a bucket or just off the field, to help it dry.
I travel around with this bilge pump during baseball season in eastern Massachusetts, and it has probably given my teams three or four games extra each year, by making inundated fields usable.
It's not hard to work the pump -- in fact, I had my nine-year-olds pump it this year -- and the design is simple and industrial. It has a small crosshatch filter to keep material out of the mechanism and the outflow rate is pretty good if you pump it steadily.
Available from and manufactured by West Marine
Favorite (15)
Rick Turner
I'm sorry, but the one I just bought for my 14 year old son is simply atrocious. The hose keeps falling out of the pump section and it's too short to really reach over the side of his restored Glen L 14. The damned thing just moves water around from the bilge to the seat where it goes back into the bilge. Do not buy this pump...
PaulD
@Rick - Sounds like you got a lemon. I bet West Marine would be happy to replace it -- esp if they could get credit for having done so in these comments :-)
Moon
That's interesting. Where do you dig the hole? How big is the hole? How long does it take? How many buckets of water do you usually have to empty before the field is dry?
That's a fantastic alternate use.
Ben G
Dig a one or two shovel full of dirt hole and put it to the side. Occasionally the water was over grass and we had to pull a big shovel sized divot out. Most puddles are about 4-5 buckets. It takes about fifteen minutes to clear a standard puddle around the plate. If your field uses quickdry you can just replace the divots/dug material and lay down the quickdry. If no quickdry is available you need to let the mud on the surface stand to dry.
Ben G
@Rick
I think you need the longest hose and pump mechanism for your son's boat. They come in different sizes and the one best for the fields is probably not the best one for a boat with a deep bilge. As for the hose.... take a look at the way it screws in. If you screw it in for him tightly you should be fine. I have never had a problem with the hose staying in once I realized it was a screw in mechanism.
CT Reader
We know quite well that it has a screw-in mechanism, and it falls out. This one was the only one of its type when we went into the store. The clerk said that was it. Perhaps with a longer hose and some waterproof tape, it would be OK. The pump mechanism seems quite adequate, but the short hose and it not fitting well is a major drag. This is not a big boat, by the way. It's hard to imagine the pump we got being good for anything other than a kayak.
Bryan
I think this would have a good use in changing water in a fish tank. I had to shut my tank down because it was such a hassle trying to keep the water clean and trying to re-pour water in with a five gallon buckets was hard to lift.
Fred
Short hose model does have a design problem. Discharge hose is only a slip fit and does fall off. For any but the most smallest boat I would recommend that you buy the model with the longest discharge hose. I can say that the pump part works well