Location of bilge pump and other queries

[LeGeMar]

pNew owner of 2015 Ranger 29S. 30 hours on engine, which performed beautifully from Charleston SC to Annapolis. Have some elementary questions:
(1) Where are the fwd and aft bilge pumps located?
(2) Should bilge pump switch at steering station be left on or off (i.e., does it activate the bp circuit or force the bp on)?
(3) Is there a 29S owner in the Annapolis area who could come over and answer more stuff in exchange for a meal at the Boatyard Restaurant?
Would be grateful for a reply. There will be other questions, I am certain. Cheers.

 

[baz]

...snip...
(2) Should bilge pump switch at steering station be left on or off (i.e., does it activate the bp circuit or force the bp on)?
...snip...

If the 29S is setup as on my previous R-25 (Classic) and my R-21EC then the bilge pump switch at your steering station should only be ON when you want to force the bilge pumps to activated. Leaving it OFF allows the water auto sensing feature of the bilge pump to activate the pump ONLY when necessary to extract water to the outside.

Therefore you would

1) Set the switch ON if for some reason you find the bilge pump is not auto sensing water correctly and you want the water to be expelled... and then turn it OFF.

2) Leave the switch OFF otherwise the bilge pumps will run continuously and eventually burn out and become useless.

I will periodically purposely pour a small bucket of water into the bilge to check that the bilge pump's water auto sensing feature is operational. IMO this is an important safety check that should be done.

 

[LeGeMar]

Thanks!

 

[rpmerrill]

I'll branch out a bit here. My bilge pump switches are in my 12 volt panel along with things like the GPS, refrigerator, etc. The panel is near the helm. But also at the helm, I have a bilge alarm switch. In case you are thinking about this in your posting, I thought I'd bring this up.

The bilge alarm is another one of those screechy alarms that scare the crap out of you... by design.
The switch has three positions: test, off and armed. Test is pretty self explanatory.
Only after I recently did some reading did I discover that I should keep it in the armed condition. Then you will get an alarm with deep water in the bilge indicating failed pump(s) or overwhelmed pump(s). Then, after you've received the "message", you can switch to the "off" position and sink in peace and quiet. (Is that bad luck? Hope not.)

I've been driving around for a year in the off position.

 

[Scuba Too]

We have a 2017 R29 CB which is similar to your boat. The aft bilge is under the shaft at the rear of the boat. The forward bilge is just forward of the engine. Neither are easy to get to unless you have long arms 🙂. The switches on the helm are just to force the bilge pumps on and are useful for testing. They should not be left on as that'll wear out the motors. In fact I try to make it a point to make sure they're not accidently left on when I leave the boat (which yes, that's happened). We did have the dreaded bilge alarm fire up during a wet winter and it turns out that a fuse had blown on the aft bilge. The bilges can also be tested by lifting the float, but again not easy to get to with out long arms. Of course it just occurred to me that you can probably get to them with the boat hook. I'll have to try that this weekend. Cheers!

 

[baz]

If the bilge pumps are running with engine off they will emit a sound that is clearly heard. It's sort of a high-pitch whining sound.