change upper drain plumbing on TomCat 255 fish boxes?

J

john8lyons

New member
Hi All,

This topic has been kicked around quite a bit on the site but I'd like to get fresh thoughts on how I might replumb the small drain in the lip of the TC 255 fish boxes.

Our boxes have drains in the aft floor attached to macerator pumps that work well, 6" access ports in the aft wall of the boxes (added by previous owner), and a small (~1/2" diameter) drain in the lip of the box that is plumbed into a thru-hull fitting that is just about at water line when we're close to fully loaded.

Both boxes, but especially the port side, tend to take on water through the drain thru-hull when we're anchored up fishing or just hanging out in the cockpit in anything other than flat water. To mitigate this, I'm thinking about dropping the upper drain line into the bilge and somehow sealing the thru-hull. I don't love the idea of putting rain / snow melt / wash water / scupper water into the bilge but I'm not sure of a better option to reduce taking on water through the drains.

Thanks for any ideas!

John
 
Your "solution" is probably the best which has been found for the leaking deck boxes. Others have done that--but didn't have the thru hulls....
 
Thanks for the reply, Bob.

Glassing the thru-hull hole seems like it would be a big job but replacing the plastic barbed fitting with a threaded brass thru-hull that could be capped on the inside seems like a possible compromise.
 
You do not want a plastic thru hull fitting. I know that some put them in. But I have seen them break off and still cause problems above the waterline. An exception is the Forespar Marelon, but I still would rather have bronze or SS.
 
We have the same issue on our new Tom Cat. I have been trying to find a way to seal the deck fish boxes so water goes out the scuppers instead of filling the box. I was also thinking that adding more chain to our anchor rode would help bring the scuppers up enough.
Has anyone tried this?
 
Quick update on this older post - I'm having a local shop glass in the old thru-hull for the drain. For now the hose will just dump into the bilge but I did see someone mention plumbing in a shower sump box on each side that would handle the fish box drain water.
 
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