All I want for Christmas is a Clean, Dry Bilge
What we hope is a good solution to our wet, stinky bilge.
12/24/20251 min read
Chris spent a good amount of time scrubbing the bilges of our Catalina 42 clean, sponging up the last droplets of water so that they were dry and mildew free, for a minute!
But our bilge pump leaves about an inch and a half of water in the bottom and as it sits, it stagnates and begins to smell. We think it is also contributing to the humidity and dampness inside the boat.
I like sleeping with the hatches open and the fresh air coming in. I don’t like sleeping between damp sheets or walking barefoot on wet floors. We tried closing the boat up while we slept and leaving the cooling unit on the dehumidifier setting. It did take care of the dampness problem, but we ended up sleeping under ten inches of blankets. I really wanted my knit beanie cap on my head, but it was too cold to get up and get it.
We tried out a stand-alone mini dehumidifier just for our sleeping cabin and that seemed to help, so we bought a larger one that we hope will keep the entire boat dry. While we are on shore power at least.
And to address the bilge problem we bought a Bilge-B-Dry system.
Our Christmas gift to ourselves.
We hope to have it installed and wired soon. Fingers crossed!
