The day my ladder pump decided to become a fountain

So I was out on the river near Bend last Tuesday, running the old ladder pump on my suction dredge. Everything was fine until I heard a pop and a hiss. Next thing I know, water is shooting straight up out of a seam in the pipe like a geyser, soaking me and everything on deck. I had to shut everything down fast and spent the next two hours patching it with a rubber sheet and three hose clamps just to get back to the dock. It looked like a comedy sketch out there. What's the weirdest sudden failure you've had to deal with on the water?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_derek27d ago

I had a similar thing happen with a fire pump on a skiff about five years ago near Coos Bay. The impeller housing cracked right at the discharge port and water shot straight up into the bilge like a fire hose. I still remember the number 38 - that's how many gallons per minute it was dumping into the boat before I got the engine killed. My patch job was a wad of marine epoxy and a piece of wetsuit neoprene held on with bailing wire, which actually got me back to the ramp slow but dry-ish. Your rubber sheet and hose clamps sound way more solid than my mess, honestly.

harper_gibson21mo ago

Man, that sounds like a total mess... did the patch at least hold? My buddy had his bilge pump hose split right at the worst time, like a week into a camping trip up the coast. It wasn't a fountain, more like a steady cold shower right into the cabin every time he ran it. He had to cut the bad part out and stretch what was left to reattach it, which meant the hose was pulled way too tight... we spent the whole last day bailing with a bucket. It was so dumb.

the_claire1mo ago

My bilge pump hose cracked last summer off Catalina. We tried a quick fix with duct tape and zip ties, but it just slowed the leak. Ended up hand bailing for two hours straight to get back to the dock.