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Just bought my first boat: E26-2 - Electric bilge pump, bow anchor roller and other questions.

acubria

Member II
I am really glad I found this website, because I am really new at owning a boat and need ideas from more season owners. The boat is in really good shape, but I wonder if I should do a few upgrades before the season starts. I have a few questions:
  1. Is the E26 really similar to the E25 and E27? In this websites I do not see many E26s, so I wonder if I can get ideas from E25&27 owners, that I can then apply to my boat.
  2. Anyone out there has installed an electric bilge pump in a E26-2 and has suggestions? The bilge is tiny and I am not sure if I even have room for additional equipment in there.
  3. the boat does not have an anchor bow roller? Is this necessary for a boat this size? The area in the bow is really crowded already with a roller fulling system. Are bow rollers normally custom made or off the self products could work. Would love to see some photos of good solutions.
Thank you in advance!
ArturoC
E26-2
Brooklyn,NY
 

1911tex

Sustaining Member
Arturo: Congratulations ! Folks will chime in who have your model Ericson. What year is it?
 

Christian Williams

E381 - Los Angeles
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
2. A small Rule submersible pump ought to fit. I like to wire it direct to the batteries so it's always "on."

3. On a 25-footer long ago I hung a Danforth anchor from the bow pulpit. It was handy, but of course was deployed entirely by hand. There are many bow rollers available if a smallish Danforth won't work in your area. All need to be bolted through the deck at an angle next to the forestay. Depends on the anchor design whether an cnchor will actually hang well when stored there, and whether it will drop and re-seat without (enormous) awkwardness.

I made this rig for a skiff. It did make hauling up a little easier.

skiff bow roller.jpg

Many models of Ericson have factory -installed bow rollers integral to the forestay chainplate. Hard to retrofit, and probably overkill for a light boat.

anchor chocks2.JPG
 
Last edited:

Alan Gomes

Sustaining Partner
hi, it is an 84 and it has a Yanmar 1gm10. I will add that to my profile.
thanks
Hello, Arturo. I also have a 1984 E26-2 with a 1GM.

Regarding your specific questions:

(1) My boat has a bow roller that I'm sure came from the factory. It is integral to the forestay chainplate. I've seen other E26's that have this as well. Not sure why yours doesn't. Perhaps your boat was re-rigged at some point with a different fitting.

(2) I have a Rule 500 GPH electric bilge pump in the center-most bilge compartment. It's a small pump and would not do much to dewater the boat in a serious emergency, but it does help with keeping the bilge more or less dry when stray water finds its way into the compartment. I also have a manual bilge pump with the pickup in the forward-most bilge compartment.

(3) The E26-2 is very similar to the earlier E25+, but is an entirely different design from the earlier E27.
 

Second Star

Member III
Have an E28+ and have had a 23 ft sailboat as well. Best to measure how much room you have in the bilge, especially height with the floor boards in and use that as a guide for what fits. If the pump doesn't have an integral float switch then you will need space for that too. You can get a small "control" panel for the BP with an integrated fuse. the panel ets you switch the pump off, set to auto so the float switch turns it on or always on. This small panel should be wired direct to the batteries. Then of course you will need to find a route for the discharge hose to an overboard position above the usual waterline. There are strings of discussion in this forum about shut off valves (or not) for this line!
If you can't get an electric pump in a hand pump located somewhere in the cockpit area with the pickup hose led to the bilge may be your only bet. Discussion in the forums about this hand pump location etc too.
I could easily pull up the anchor on the 23 footer and it had no bow roller; the 28 has a roller and I can just pull it and the 15 feet of chain up if there is no wind/current putting strain on the line. You may want to put a season under your belt before doing such a big project that will require a lot of effort to get access to install the through bolts needed that far forward in the boat.
Enjoy the boat!
 

acubria

Member II
Have an E28+ and have had a 23 ft sailboat as well. Best to measure how much room you have in the bilge, especially height with the floor boards in and use that as a guide for what fits. If the pump doesn't have an integral float switch then you will need space for that too. You can get a small "control" panel for the BP with an integrated fuse. the panel ets you switch the pump off, set to auto so the float switch turns it on or always on. This small panel should be wired direct to the batteries. Then of course you will need to find a route for the discharge hose to an overboard position above the usual waterline. There are strings of discussion in this forum about shut off valves (or not) for this line!
If you can't get an electric pump in a hand pump located somewhere in the cockpit area with the pickup hose led to the bilge may be your only bet. Discussion in the forums about this hand pump location etc too.
I could easily pull up the anchor on the 23 footer and it had no bow roller; the 28 has a roller and I can just pull it and the 15 feet of chain up if there is no wind/current putting strain on the line. You may want to put a season under your belt before doing such a big project that will require a lot of effort to get access to install the through bolts needed that far forward in the boat.
Enjoy the boat!
thanks for the info. You are right, the bow roller can wait a season for sure.
 

acubria

Member II
2. A small Rule submersible pump ought to fit. I like to wire it direct to the batteries so it's always "on."

3. On a 25-footer long ago I hung a Danforth anchor from the bow pulpit. It was handy, but of course was deployed entirely by hand. There are many bow rollers available if a smallish Danforth won't work in your area. All need to be bolted through the deck at an angle next to the forestay. Depends on the anchor design whether an cnchor will actually hang well when stored there, and whether it will drop and re-seat without (enormous) awkwardness.

I made this rig for a skiff. It did make hauling up a little easier.

View attachment 37480

Many models of Ericson have factory -installed bow rollers integral to the forestay chainplate. Hard to retrofit, and probably overkill for a light boat.

View attachment 37481
thanks Christian, that photo of the bow roller is super helpful. Maybe a project for next winter. The anchor is pretty light, so maybe it is not necessary .
 

acubria

Member II
Hello, Arturo. I also have a 1984 E26-2 with a 1GM.

Regarding your specific questions:

(1) My boat has a bow roller that I'm sure came from the factory. It is integral to the forestay chainplate. I've seen other E26's that have this as well. Not sure why yours doesn't. Perhaps your boat was re-rigged at some point with a different fitting.

(2) I have a Rule 500 GPH electric bilge pump in the center-most bilge compartment. It's a small pump and would not do much to dewater the boat in a serious emergency, but it does help with keeping the bilge more or less dry when stray water finds its way into the compartment. I also have a manual bilge pump with the pickup in the forward-most bilge compartment.

(3) The E26-2 is very similar to the earlier E25+, but is an entirely different design from the earlier E27.
Alan, thank you for the info. All I want is a pump to deal with water from the rain and the stuffing box. Did you make a new thru hull for the electric pump or did you connect it to the hose of the manual bilge pump? I do not want more holes! I did not see much room to run a new hose all the way to the stern. I am totally new to owning a boat and diesels, so stop me if I ask too many questions.
 

Alan Gomes

Sustaining Partner
Alan, thank you for the info. All I want is a pump to deal with water from the rain and the stuffing box. Did you make a new thru hull for the electric pump or did you connect it to the hose of the manual bilge pump? I do not want more holes! I did not see much room to run a new hose all the way to the stern. I am totally new to owning a boat and diesels, so stop me if I ask too many questions.
The pump was already installed when I bought the boat. But I can tell you that the hose runs through a hole in the aft end of the center bilge compartment, through the aft bilge compartment, and from there back to the stern to a thru hull fairly high up on the starboard side of the transom.
 

Roger Janeway

Member II
Arturo, two years ago I was in your position exactly and this website has been very helpful (especially Alan Gomes for us E26 owners. He knows everything about them and is a good teacher). The boat is more fun than I expected and easy to singlehand. It's also a great boat to learn about boat ownership on, because everything is smaller and cheaper. Congratulations!

At first I was very worried about the lack of an electric bilge pump in my boat. Now I still have no electric bilge pump and it has become a very low priority for me. Brooklyn has a lot more rain than Los Angeles, however, so if your boat takes in much water in the rain then you're facing something different. My boat is nearly watertight in a hard rain. (The deck-stepped mast helps.)

The prior owner of my boat had tried to install an electric bilge pump in the forward compartment but it won't fit next to the foot of the manual bilge pump intake that Ericson shipped the boat with. (I suspect he put it there when his sales broker told him that his boat needed an electric bilge pump, because there's no sign it was ever used.)

Note that Ericson manufactured this boat with only the manual bilge pump. They knew something about their boat.


The pandemic forced me to leave my boat in the water untouched for five months last year, and because the stuffing box didn't leak, there was no problem.

I recommend getting familiar with your stuffing box before worrying about an electric bilge pump. If it leaks more than a couple of drops per minute at rest, and you can't tighten the nut to stop the leak, then you need to replace the packing material. But even if it drips a bit, you can measure the amount of water that comes in by sucking it out of the bilge and doing some math. At one point I was taking in 1 liter per week, so if you know that, you just have to keep on top of it. The bilges will hold at least 4 gallons (15 liters) before there's enough water for the manual bilge pump to reach it. Get used to how much water comes in and how regularly you can check on your boat.

You will want to learn how to get water out of the three separate bilges through those tiny holes. Plastic pumps used to suction oil are cheap and available at Home Depot, and will last a while, but they eventually corrode. I find a plastic medical syringe the easiest. See below. This would be crazy on a large boat, but with the E26, you usually only need to suck out a couple of liters.

1614918876201.png https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PYVBYH3?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_dt_b_product_details

In general, I recommend heeding the advice that you will see all over this website: Just start sailing your boat, and figure out what you want to change as you grow familiar with her. Plenty of things that I thought needed to be tackled when I bought the boat I have simply forgotten about. There are so many different systems to learn (e.g., the head, the engine, the stuffing box, the boom-internal lines), that it can seem overwhelming at first. Just learn each one as you go along, bit by bit, and keep sailing. (But I just realized this advice is harder to follow in Brooklyn during the winter!)

P.S. Your Yanmar might not present this problem, but stuffing box access isn't easy. I do it over my engine, facing aft, after removing the coolant overflow container which is in the way. The problem with this is that the engine can't be hot when you adjust the nuts.
 

gabriel

Live free or die hard
Hey congratulations!

In case you haven't already, there’s a guy on YouTube who’s made some videos of his e26. I believe the boat is called “turtle”.
 

KS Dave

Dastardly Villain
Blogs Author
Anyone out there has installed an electric bilge pump in a E26-2 and has suggestions? The bilge is tiny and I am not sure if I even have room for additional equipment in there.
Huzzah! Another E26-2 owner. Welcome, Arturo. I'm also a new E26 owner.

My boat came with an electric bilge pump. Handy because I'm an hour-plus away from my boat. I also have a Blink camera aimed at the bilge to keep an eye and make sure the pump is working. The pump burned itself out during the really hard freeze a couple of weeks ago. Since I have a leaky stuffing box that I can't (won't) address until haul-out, and an unknown number of other places water gets in, I'm going to replace mine before the Spring rains start. For "status quo" purposes, I chose another Seaflo. It was in the center bilge compartment, but is a little tall. I'm going to relocate to the aft compartment and re-run some wiring. It should be more out of the way there and fit well into my future plans. I currently discharge in a through-hull accessed under the sink in the head.

I'm going to document my work on it this weekend - I'll post some pictures of what it looks like when it's all done. Long-term, I want to get a diaphragm pump with a pickup in the aft bilge so I can get the water level down lower. I also plan to rebuild the manual Whale gusher pump as the rubber is all rotted out and re-plumb the hose and pickup.
 

acubria

Member II
Hey congratulations!

In case you haven't already, there’s a guy on YouTube who’s made some videos of his e26. I believe the boat is called “turtle”.
oh yeah, that guy did a really intense job! Really impressive. I have watch his upgrade video 17 times. Thanks
 

acubria

Member II
Huzzah! Another E26-2 owner. Welcome, Arturo. I'm also a new E26 owner.

My boat came with an electric bilge pump. Handy because I'm an hour-plus away from my boat. I also have a Blink camera aimed at the bilge to keep an eye and make sure the pump is working. The pump burned itself out during the really hard freeze a couple of weeks ago. Since I have a leaky stuffing box that I can't (won't) address until haul-out, and an unknown number of other places water gets in, I'm going to replace mine before the Spring rains start. For "status quo" purposes, I chose another Seaflo. It was in the center bilge compartment, but is a little tall. I'm going to relocate to the aft compartment and re-run some wiring. It should be more out of the way there and fit well into my future plans. I currently discharge in a through-hull accessed under the sink in the head.

I'm going to document my work on it this weekend - I'll post some pictures of what it looks like when it's all done. Long-term, I want to get a diaphragm pump with a pickup in the aft bilge so I can get the water level down lower. I also plan to rebuild the manual Whale gusher pump as the rubber is all rotted out and re-plumb the hose and pickup.
thanks for the comments. It would be great if you can document your work. not so many e26s in the forums....
It has been really cold since I bought the boat 2 weeks ago, so I have to go and really dig deep and take measurements. My bilge compartment under the cabin floor is really shallow ( about 4") . I think this low profile pump would fit. I wonder if there is room for a pump somewhere near the stuffing box or under the Yanmar. Lots to learn ! I am super excited to take her out sailing. In 4-5 weeks I need to bring her to Brooklyn from Long Island, via Hells Gate. That is going to be my first adventure.
 

acubria

Member II
Arturo, two years ago I was in your position exactly and this website has been very helpful (especially Alan Gomes for us E26 owners. He knows everything about them and is a good teacher). The boat is more fun than I expected and easy to singlehand. It's also a great boat to learn about boat ownership on, because everything is smaller and cheaper. Congratulations!

At first I was very worried about the lack of an electric bilge pump in my boat. Now I still have no electric bilge pump and it has become a very low priority for me. Brooklyn has a lot more rain than Los Angeles, however, so if your boat takes in much water in the rain then you're facing something different. My boat is nearly watertight in a hard rain. (The deck-stepped mast helps.)

The prior owner of my boat had tried to install an electric bilge pump in the forward compartment but it won't fit next to the foot of the manual bilge pump intake that Ericson shipped the boat with. (I suspect he put it there when his sales broker told him that his boat needed an electric bilge pump, because there's no sign it was ever used.)

Note that Ericson manufactured this boat with only the manual bilge pump. They knew something about their boat.

The pandemic forced me to leave my boat in the water untouched for five months last year, and because the stuffing box didn't leak, there was no problem.

I recommend getting familiar with your stuffing box before worrying about an electric bilge pump. If it leaks more than a couple of drops per minute at rest, and you can't tighten the nut to stop the leak, then you need to replace the packing material. But even if it drips a bit, you can measure the amount of water that comes in by sucking it out of the bilge and doing some math. At one point I was taking in 1 liter per week, so if you know that, you just have to keep on top of it. The bilges will hold at least 4 gallons (15 liters) before there's enough water for the manual bilge pump to reach it. Get used to how much water comes in and how regularly you can check on your boat.

You will want to learn how to get water out of the three separate bilges through those tiny holes. Plastic pumps used to suction oil are cheap and available at Home Depot, and will last a while, but they eventually corrode. I find a plastic medical syringe the easiest. See below. This would be crazy on a large boat, but with the E26, you usually only need to suck out a couple of liters.

View attachment 37521 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PYVBYH3?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_dt_b_product_details

In general, I recommend heeding the advice that you will see all over this website: Just start sailing your boat, and figure out what you want to change as you grow familiar with her. Plenty of things that I thought needed to be tackled when I bought the boat I have simply forgotten about. There are so many different systems to learn (e.g., the head, the engine, the stuffing box, the boom-internal lines), that it can seem overwhelming at first. Just learn each one as you go along, bit by bit, and keep sailing. (But I just realized this advice is harder to follow in Brooklyn during the winter!)

P.S. Your Yanmar might not present this problem, but stuffing box access isn't easy. I do it over my engine, facing aft, after removing the coolant overflow container which is in the way. The problem with this is that the engine can't be hot when you adjust the nuts.
hi Roger,
thanks very much for your advice. Yes lots to learn and best to take it slowly while enjoying the way. The boat is really dry. I very tiny bit of water gets in I think through the anchor locker or somewhere near the bow and deposits on a triangular mini bilge all the way in the front of the V-berth. The person who sold the boat to me, while covered with ice, snow and floating on the water, told me that back in November he tightened the stuffing box to stop it from dripping. I think it still does but very little. I emptied the bilge with a manual pump and a week later I went back and the bilge was 1/4 full. I will have to untighten the stuffing box before I use the motor. The ex-owner promised to come help me get her ready in a few weeks. Changing that packing material looks pretty tricky to do while hanging upside-down over a Diesel engine... I hope I don't have to do that. Just got a pack of 3 syringes
 

Christian Williams

E381 - Los Angeles
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
Brooklyn from Long Island, via Hells Gate.

Be confident in the engine and double-check the tide changes. An experienced hand aboard will make make for an enjoyable delivery.
 

Roger Janeway

Member II
hi Roger,
thanks very much for your advice. Yes lots to learn and best to take it slowly while enjoying the way. The boat is really dry. I very tiny bit of water gets in I think through the anchor locker or somewhere near the bow and deposits on a triangular mini bilge all the way in the front of the V-berth. The person who sold the boat to me, while covered with ice, snow and floating on the water, told me that back in November he tightened the stuffing box to stop it from dripping. I think it still does but very little. I emptied the bilge with a manual pump and a week later I went back and the bilge was 1/4 full. I will have to untighten the stuffing box before I use the motor. The ex-owner promised to come help me get her ready in a few weeks. Changing that packing material looks pretty tricky to do while hanging upside-down over a Diesel engine... I hope I don't have to do that. Just got a pack of 3 syringes
I have just been learning about stuffing boxes, so if I'm wrong about this, I hope someone else on the forum will correct me.

I have not yet tried to replace the packing material myself and I share your reluctance to do it. (Despite the videos on YouTube showing us how.) When I bought my boat, I had to haul her out for bottom painting and the boatyard repacked the stuffing box (for $300!).

Apparently we are advised NOT to tighten the stuffing box nut so much when the boat is moored that you then have to loosen it in order to run the engine. The reason is that the packing material inside the big nut does not just expand and contract when you loosen or tighten it. Instead, once it gets compressed, it stays compressed. So if you over-tighten it, then leave it that way for a while, when you later loosen it in order to let your prop shaft rotate, the stuffing box will leak more than it should. But I doubt that is a disaster for your voyage through the East River to Brooklyn. As Christian advised, it would be good on a first expedition like that to have a first mate, and why not bring along some buckets? Buckets of different sizes are essential safety equipment. And a large sponge.

Do you know if your built-in manual bilge pump works? The problem is that to test it, you need to flood your bilge with 4-5 gallons of water just to reach the intake. I mention that as a safety backup in case you need to use your prop and it brings in a lot of water. I agree with Christian that having confidence in your engine is important, and that would be ideal for Hell's Gate, but the wonderful thing about sails is how simple and reliable they are, except when the wind is too light to fight a tide. (On my first test drive after buying my boat, the engine failed because of a seized alternator, but the jib furler still worked, and I ghosted safely back to my slip.)

I have no idea how practical it is to plan your expedition when it's reasonable to expect some wind. Can you time your passage through the East River so that the section with the least wind will at least have a favorable tide?

For peace of mind on whether your stuffing box is over-heating, it helps to have an infrared thermometer. (They are used by HVAC people and cheap but fine ones are at Home Depot etc for $20). You can point it at the stuffing box and tell if it's getting too hot. (You can also point it at other parts of your engine to see if things are OK.)
 
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