Head (toilet) Hose Connections Ericson 381

[Christian Williams]

Here is what I believe to be Ericson factory connections. Those who wonder why anybody would bother to post this for posterity can harken back to Easter Day, 2020, when the Covid 19 plague closed society and nobody had anything better to do.



A (photo below): Left hose goes to holding tank. Right intake hose valve selects seawater rinse from through-hull or fresh water rinse from sink drain.



B Whale manual discharge pump. Not connected on this boat, which is fitted with an electrical macerator discharge pump .



C Selector valve for deck pump-out of holding tank vs. overboard discharge via macerator.



D Another view.



E Macerator pump* (behind "to bowl" on hose) and sink drain valve to permit fresh water flush of toilet. The selector is currently set to overboard sink discharge, meaning the sink drains normally. Turning the valve directs sink water to the head flush intake. (Use of salt or lake water for flushing introduces organisms into the toilet which decay, stain and stink.)

*Discussion of macerator pump is here.



F Through-hull fittings for overboard waste and sink drain.



Placard. Guests are unfamiliar with boat heads. This wording works most of the time. The parenthesis was added after a PhD who holds the chair in statistics at Purdue could not figure out how to flush a toilet. I personally set the valves as needed to fresh-water flush or drain-the vanity-sink. If you suggest that guests change the valve setting themselves they get a terrified look in their eyes and say, "I didn't really have to go anyhow." Hmmm. "Toiler paper?" For hard working crew? I'll have to take a pencil and fix that...when the virus goes away.

 

[Loren Beach]

Cool. Nice reference to have.
If you often have guests aboard, it might be good to have another and larger sign for the head compartment saying: " Everyone Sits. Nobody Stands! "
We have been informing guests and delivery crew of this rule for many years. Only a couple of times have guys asked, "really?" and we said: Yes Really. Actually other sailors have always said that they understand the reason....

Solves 98% of the cleanliness hassle for the head compartment, especially in waves. Essential offshore, too.

As for all of those valves, how about another Warning Sign saying:
"Misadjusting the coolant flow valves can cause a runaway reactor failure if the core overheats."
:eek:

 

[1911tex]

Here is what I believe to be Ericson factory connections. Those who wonder why anybody would bother to post this for posterity can harken back to Easter Day, 2020, when the Covid 19 plague closed society and nobody had anything better to do.

View attachment 33215

A Left hose goes to holding tank. Right intake hose valve selects seawater rinse from through-hull or fresh water rinse from sink drain.

View attachment 33216

B Whale manual discharge pump. Not connected on this boat, which is fitted with an electrical macerator discharge pump .

View attachment 33217

C Selector valve for deck pump-out of holding tank vs. overboard discharge via macerator.

View attachment 33218

D Another view.

View attachment 33219

E Macerator pump (behind "to bowl" on hose) and sink drain valve to permit fresh water flush of toilet. The selector is currently set to overboard sink discharge, meaning the sink drains normally. Turning the valve directs sink water to the head flush intake. (Use of salt or lake water for flushing introduces organisms into the toilet which decay, stain and stink.)

View attachment 33220

F Through-hull fittings for overboard waste and sink drain.

View attachment 33222

Placard. Guests are unfamiliar with boat heads. This wording works most of the time. The parenthesis was added after a PhD who holds the chair in statistics at Purdue could not figure out how to flush a toilet. I personally set the valves as needed to fresh-water flush or drain-the vanity-sink. If you suggest that guests change the valve setting themselves they get a terrified look in their eyes and say, "I didn't really have to go anyhow." Hmmm. "Toiler paper?" For hard working crew? I'll have to take a pencil and fix that...when the virus goes away.

View attachment 33223

Now I understand how your Gusher 10 was originally set up....pictures are worth their weight in gold!!! Thank you Christian

 

[footrope]

Interesting post, Christian. One of comfortable cruising's necessities. We got boarded by the Coast Guard about 10 months after buying our 1980 E38. They were looking for the usual, life jackets, fire extinguishers … and the Y-valve for the head. And I looked and looked and stammered. That was the day I learned the plumbing intricacies of our head and holding tank, which I believe was/is factory. I was able to point out that there was no Y-valve because the toilet bowl discharge led only and directly to the holding tank. I pointed to the closed overboard valve and managed to avoid a lecture about it not being wired closed. They were very polite and we got a 6-month get-out-of-inspection receipt.

The hand pump is quite effective when legal and necessary but is impossible to clear after use.

 

[1911tex]

Is the overboard valve supposed to be wired closed? It looks like there are the proper holes for wiring the valve shut in Christians pics E & F above. Christian...your overboard valve isn't wired shut ! I guess to use it, unwire, then rewire?

 

[footrope]

Is the overboard valve supposed to be wired closed? It looks like there are the proper holes for wiring the valve shut in Christians pics E & F above. Christian...your overboard valve isn't wired shut ! I guess to use it, unwire, then rewire?

I don't think wiring it closed is required. Mine isn't wired and since it is not the infamous Y-valve I haven't been concerned about it.

 

[1911tex]

Great news...suffocating with all the rules I don't know about. But they say, ignorance is no excuse of the law.

 

[Christian Williams]

On the 32-3 I kept the Y-valve "wired" with a cable tie to fulfill the moral obligation. That Y-valve makes it possible to accidentally discharge direct overboard, rather than into a holding tank. Which would be icky in harbor.

Naturally, I set out for Hawaii on that boat misunderstanding the Y-valve completely. It was mounted upsidedown under the vanity sink and could only be accessed by feel. So I sailed a thousand miles offshore pumping into the holding tank, which I only realized one pretty trade-winds day when a strange pungent liquid appeared running down the topsides of the baot. What? It was coming from the holding tank vent. Oh. I had filled my holding tank, and then pressurized it. Hoorah.

I also discovered that my 32-3 was not plumbed to discharge the holding tank overboard--I was supposed to use a pumping station, the civilized way. Ok, so I carried my full holding tank to Nawiliwili. Nawiliwili turned out to have only one pumpout machine, and it had been busted for as long as anybody there could remember. Now what? I was living with a brim-full crap locker with 3000 nautical miles left to go. So, in the dead of night, holding my nose, I inserted a water hose into the deck fill out and turned it on. For hours my own former insides bubbled out, an evil brown river running down the deck to pour into the pristine Hawaiian water. Well, not so pristine, really, since the harbor is on the outflow of a muddy river. Still, I can tell you, even at midnight you feel mighty conspicuous.

So, yeah, Y-valve. But that wasn;t nearly so bad as a few years ago on a Lagoon 60 catamaran in the BVI, where ten of us had been using our separate en-suite heads frequently to keep up with the flow of new French cuisine coming in at the top end. The BVI waters are pristine indeed. The yacht even had underwater lights to illuminate the fishies. I was lounging on the rail at dusk, the underwater lights had just illuminated, when a distant rumbling could be felt through the deck. The view beneath me clouded suddenly, as if an underwater storm was approaching. How interesting. Then swam into view the first of the turds. My word, could it be? I glanced at the cabin house where the dashing French charter captain looked innocently back at me. But his finger was holding down a switch. For minutes the cloud below me grew, blossoming, filled with debris, paper, and otherwise familiar products of digestion. Egad! I was the only one who saw it, and the spectacular ruination of a crystal clear cove. I kept my mouth shut.

The next day I asked the skipper privately how often he usually pumped out the holding tanks for a party of ten and three crew? "Oh boy," he said, "I let it go way too long that time. Thanks for not saying anything."

So, there are two horrible stories about why the Coast Guard wants us not to crap in harbors, and why if there's a Y-valve we can assure ourselves it doesn't happen by accident by tying it off in the correct position.

On my current boat, like Footrope's boat, it isn't possible to pump overboard accidentally. The stuff always goes into the holding tank first. You'd have to accidentally do it on purpose.

 

[Loren Beach]

AFAIK, the stock EY head plumbing schematic for the 80's was to have the head contents exit to a "T" or a Y valve that either directed it to the discharge thru hull, or to the holding tank. They also provided a Whale hand pump, inside the head compartment, that could pump the contents of the holding tank out thru that same thru hull, by turning the valve to the other inlet side.

The holding tank had three hoses: one for filling it, and two for emptying it, and one of those went to deck pumpout fitting. That's what I found when I reformatted our whole system with new hoses, pump, and separate y valves. The factory system, as designed, would allow for pumpout in legal waters.
It was complicated enough that a vendor article about marine head systems referred to it as the "Chernobyl" of head plumbing systems!

 

[Christian Williams]

On the 32-3 the stock plumbing was for holding tank evacuation through the deck waste hose only. There was an option for the additional plumbing and whale pump to be able to pump the tank contents overboard. Apparently Ericson assumed widespread marina facilities for its customers!

f

 

[1911tex]

Oh goodness, just lost my appetite.......

 

[footrope]

One nice feature of the manual discharge pump on my boat is being able to tell when it is working while you're pumping away. This is accomplished visually by the use of translucent plastic fittings. I wedged a flashlight behind one of the fittings near the pump and was able to observe the flow. Also, the first 20 or so strokes didn't feel very productive, too easy, and that was because the pump had not primed. Once the pump primed the resistance on the hand pump increased quite a bit. I didn't count the strokes needed to pump maybe 13 gallons, but it was more than 100. Prior to our 2018 cruise into Canada (5-1/2 weeks) I had only used the hand pump in emergencies so that we could avoid the holding tank vent from becoming a pressure relief pathway.

Brief digression: I chartered a sailboat for a couple weeks, years before buying my own, and one day it became difficult to pump the toilet. I soon discovered that effluent was coming out of a lifeline stanchion which was used as a vent. Ugh. Lesson learned.

Anyway, on that long cruise we did have to pump the holding tank overboard a couple times when no pumpout stations were available, observing the Canadian rules. I recommend a Tank Watch or similar holding tank monitor to help warn you when the tank is nearly full. Ours is a simple float on a stick that lights up to let us know there is only a couple inches of space left.

 

[1911tex]

I still have nightmares about Christian seeing a turd floating by after head use by 10 folks on a charter.....holy s...oh never mind.

 

[ddoles]

I'm in the process of replacing my 30+ year old sanitation hoses, and while doing so, including some upgrades. The current system has the Y-valve, but it was broken and so I never used it in overboard mode, and never missed it. I will now do without it to simplify the system and have the head discharge only into the holding tank. In addition to dock side pump out, I have the whale gusher 10 as an overboard pump out option. I rarely use it, but I like to have the option where permissible. While ripping out hoses I removed the whale pump and found it to be terribly corroded and so will replace it. I was considering changing to a plastic Whale pump specifically designed for holding tank use, but it did not fit in the space, so I'm back to the metal gusher 10. To mitigate future corrosion problems I plan to install a Y-valve in the suction line from the holding tank to draw either from the holding tank, or from a secondary hose. With the secondary hose I will have the ability to flush with fresh water to rinse the pump, or antifreeze to winterize. I think this will all work and will be doing the install in a week or so. The final upgrade is to also install a tank level monitor. This will eliminate the stress of trying to guess the holding tank level.

 

[1911tex]

Sidebar: With rules where you can overboard effluent...do the 10's of millions of fishes and other sea critters that want to use facilities also have those rules?? Do folks swimming in the lakes and oceans bothered by this? What about the millions of lakes and rivers and oceans containing tons of livestock effluent and fertilizer runoff? I do not believe boats would overwhelm effluent in our waters...I may be incorrect, due to the laws.

 

[Loren Beach]

Sidebar: With rules where you can overboard effluent...do the 10's of millions of fishes and other sea critters that want to use facilities also have those rules?? Do folks swimming in the lakes and oceans bothered by this? What about the millions of lakes and rivers and oceans containing tons of livestock effluent and fertilizer runoff? I do not believe boats would overwhelm effluent in our waters...I may be incorrect, due to the laws.

The answer gets complicated and more detailed, but I see the laws as efforts by gov't entities to try to show that they are doing something, even tho their efforts aimed at boaters only attack 1% of the problem. Unlike municipalities, golf courses, ranches, and factories producing lots of pollution, we recreational boaters do not have armies of attorneys to oppose legislative restrictions.
This is not to say that recreational boating should do nothing... just that enforcement-wise we are the vulnerable "low hanging fruit".

And then, there is some PR boost of enforcing laws on "yacht owners". We do not generally get much slack in the local press like those guys in the aluminum fishing boats. Double Irony: the new price of a decent 18 foot fishing sled and big motor is way higher than the value of most of our 30 year old sailboats.

Examples in my area: pretty much every year our city's ancient sewage system has a break or a control failure in some main line that usually spills 1 to 2 million gallons into the Columbia or Willamette Rivers, and every single time the city's announcement to the media is that the waters will be "safe" again for recreational use in.... 48 hours... !
It is kind of difficult to overcome the alarm setting on my cynicism meter and get very concerned about the occasional boater putting a bit of bodily waste into these waters. And, yep, most boaters that I know DO use their holding tanks and try to visit marina facilities when they can.

Up north, the whole of he (BC) Sannich Peninsula, including the large city of Victoria , discharges a reported 6 million gallons of sewage into the Straits of Juan de Fuca, every day, 24/7. Their local press has routinely reported acrimonious planning meetings with all the waste-contributing entities in their area, for the last 20 years or so. To my knowledge they have not fixed it yet. Somehow the tide currents in and out of the Sound are considered to dilute this enough to pass some sort of politically-expedient standard. (Not like I have an opinion, of course!)

Lakes and any boating area with no water "turnover" OTOH, are different. We sailboat owners are vastly outnumbered in Oregon by fishermen and skiers, and our Marine Board has installed a number of floating outhouse docks in many lakes and at park docks. This is really a great effort to keep clean waters clean, in the last 50 years.

 

[1911tex]

The answer gets complicated and more detailed, but I see the laws as efforts by gov't entities to try to show that they are doing something, even tho their efforts aimed at boaters only attack 1% of the problem. Unlike municipalities, golf courses, ranches, and factories producing lots of pollution, we recreational boaters do not have armies of attorneys to oppose legislative restrictions.
This is not to say that recreational boating should do nothing... just that enforcement-wise we are the vulnerable "low hanging fruit".

And then, there is some PR boost of enforcing laws on "yacht owners". We do not generally get much slack in the local press like those guys in the aluminum fishing boats. Double Irony: the new price of a decent 18 foot fishing sled and big motor is way higher than the value of most of our 30 year old sailboats.

Examples in my area: pretty much every year our city's ancient sewage system has a break or a control failure in some main line that usually spills 1 to 2 million gallons into the Columbia or Willamette Rivers, and every single time the city's announcement to the media is that the waters will be "safe" again for recreational use in.... 48 hours... !
It is kind of difficult to overcome the alarm setting on my cynicism meter and get very concerned about the occasional boater putting a bit of bodily waste into these waters. And, yep, most boaters that I know DO use their holding tanks and try to visit marina facilities when they can.

Up north, the whole of he (BC) Sannich Peninsula, including the large city of Victoria , discharges a reported 6 million gallons of sewage into the Straits of Juan de Fuca, every day, 24/7. Their local press has faithfully reported acrimonious planning meetings with all the waste-contributing entities in their area, for the last 20 years or so. To my knowledge they have not fixed it yet. Somehow the tide currents in and out of the Sound are considered to dilute this enough to pass some sort of polically-expedient standard. (Not like I have an opinion, of course!)

Lakes and any boating area with no water "turnover" OTOH, are different. We sailboat owners are vastly outnumbered in Oregon by fishermen and skiers, and our Marine Board has installed a number of floating outhouse docks in many lakes and at park docks. This is really a great effort to keep clean waters clean, in the last 50 years.

Beautifully stated.....!

 

[Prairie Schooner]

Here is what I believe to be Ericson factory connections. Those who wonder why anybody would bother to post this for posterity can harken back to Easter Day, 2020, when the Covid 19 plague closed society and nobody had anything better to do.

View attachment 33215

A Left hose goes to holding tank. Right intake hose valve selects seawater rinse from through-hull or fresh water rinse from sink drain.

View attachment 33219

E Macerator pump (behind "to bowl" on hose) and sink drain valve to permit fresh water flush of toilet. The selector is currently set to overboard sink discharge, meaning the sink drains normally. Turning the valve directs sink water to the head flush intake. (Use of salt or lake water for flushing introduces organisms into the toilet which decay, stain and stink.)

View attachment 33220

F Through-hull fittings for overboard waste and sink drain.

Hi Christian,
As I reinstall our head fixins I've been using Peggy's book and your photos as guides. I've got a mental block. Is there a way in your system to use raw water to flush the toilet, in addition to the fresh from the sink? I can't figure out where that could happen.
[edit: Is there a second Wye valve behind the toilet for that purpose?]
Thanks,
Jeff

 

[Christian Williams]

Yes, there's a hose that supplies sea water from a dedicated seacock under the sink.

I think it's the middle seacock in this photo. I keep it closed because I use fresh flush.

The photo was taken during hose replacement, so the Groco filter is disconnected.

Ill confirm this tomorrow at the boat.

 

[Prairie Schooner]

Yes, there's a hose that supplies sea water from a dedicated seacock under the sink.

I think it's the middle seacock in this photo. I keep it closed because I use fresh flush.

The photo was taken during hose replacement, so the Groco filter is disconnected.

Ill confirm this tomorrow at the boat.

No wonder I couldn't figure it out! I was trying to imagine how all this happened with only one wye.
Do you still pump with fresh water on your long voyages?
Thanks Christian.