Flushing System

Freezer pump stopped working, blocked by shellfish

It happened, when we returned to the boat after some time, the freezer pump didn’t work. It turned out to be blocked by shellfish. And not only the pump. After I cleaned the pump, the hose turned out to be completely blocked too!

The reason was quite simple but never thought of it before. We had left the seacocks open. Seawater is full of life and after a while not using the freezer, mussels had grown in the pump and the hose. It just happens.

To prevent this you first of all want to close all the seacocks when you leave the boat for some time. The other thing you can do is to install a system to flush your pump(s) with fresh water. By flushing all pumps and hoses there is nu life left that can develop. Before leaving the boat, I close the seacocks and flush them with fresh water for a couple of minutes from the water tank.

Since I was installing this flushing system for the freezer, I put in a manifold to flush all systems, the pumps for the watermaker and aircon including the cooling system of the engine and the generator.