Bilge Pump

Review by Sophie Pearson

Edited by Ken Bigelow

August 13, 2009

Background
Name: Sophie Pearson
Age: 27
Location: Tampa, Florida
Email: sophiep3 at gmail dot com
Paddling style: I paddle a 36-year-old fully open 13.5′ (4.1 m) sit-in kevlar kayak. I do flatwater kayaking on oceans and rivers year round. I prefer to do long-weekend paddles covering 50+ miles (80+ km), but also do many relaxed day trips, the odd race or two and some week-long paddles.

Product Information
Manufacturer: Seattle Sports
Website: www.seattlesportsco.com
MSRP: US $19.99
Color: Neon Yellow
Year of Purchase: 2008

The website actually has two weights listed on the same page, the heavier on the main page, and the lighter under the specifications section.

Product Description
The Seattle Sports Paddlers Bilge Pump is a hand-held pump designed to get water out of a kayak. It is composed of two tubes that fit inside each other. The inside tube is a fairly thin black pipe with a blue handle attached. The handle has finger grips (I believe the new ones have rubber there too). The outer tube is primarily a wider yellow tube that the black tube fits inside. At the bottom of the outer tube there is a rubber flap to stop water getting in/out without the suction of the handle. At the top of the tube there is an opening perpendicular to it where the water comes out when pumping. Around the middle of the outer tube there is a cylinder of foam wrapped in blue plastic.

Use
I bought this bilge pump not long after I got my kayak. It has been on at least 40 trips since then, ranging from 2-hour paddles to 65 mile (105 km) 3-nighters. It has been used occasionally, fortunately not too often as the very small cockpit on my kayak means that when I capsize it takes ages to get back in! It generally sits under a bungee on the front of my kayak.

Review

Design
The idea and design of this bilge pump is simple and effective. Using man-power it pulls water into the bottom of the pump, and when there is enough pressure, it pushes it out of the top. It is a bit counter-intuitive because it means that pushing down on the pump sends water out of the top. If there is more than a few inches of water in my kayak it definitely gets tiring to pump it though, especially as my kayak doesn’t have bulkheads so that is a fair quantity of water.

Ease of use
I have used, and seen people use, this pump many times and it does spray the water out of the kayak. The spray travels maybe two feet, depending on the speed of pumping and the amount of water in the kayak. The deeper the water, the easier it is to fill up the tube and so the better it works. It definitely gets the worst of it out, but I have found that it is really necessary to carry a sponge to mop up the last bits if I don’t want standing water in the bottom. When there is only a small amount of water the pump has to be angled because there is not enough pressure to send the water far enough out to clear the kayak. This also means that it is sucking up less water though. Some of my friends use super-soaker style things and that seems to work equally well.

The foam hand-hold
I think the foam cylinder around the outer tube is supposed to be a hand-hold, but it is too thick for my hand, and my hands are larger than average for a female. It is also a bit too close to the bottom, making it awkward to hold there and pump with the handle at the top. I just hold above it around the tube directly. It is possible that the new model is better with this – from the image it looks like the new ones have sleeker foam that sits higher up the tube. The other issue I have with it is that the foam has split. I don’t know if it has expanded over time causing it to split, or if it is just a weakness. The blue plastic has not split, but it is visibly thinner above the split in the foam. The foam now has a 3/4 in (2 cm) gap where it doesn’t meet the entire way around.

Weather resilience
It is such a simple design that it seems like not much could go wrong. However, the screws used in it are now looking quite rusty. It appears to be purely cosmetic at the moment though. I do a fair amount of ocean kayaking and am really lazy about cleaning off the salt water, so I take the blame for that really.

The screws have got rusty

Durability
The big issue that I have had has rendered the pump useless. It has bent. It now has a curve in it that makes the inner tube incredibly hard to pull out of the outer tube. I guess that something heavy must have been put on it when it was in the trunk of my car, but I did not notice doing it. The inner tube is now very curved towards the bottom and straight near the handle. The outer tube has a gentle curve the whole way along. Even when the bends are in line, the strange distortion of the inner tube means that it is really, really hard to pump. I have tried to use it a few times, but there is so much resistance that it is just not worth it. I always end up borrowing a friend’s pump. It needs replacing now, but I may look for something more sturdy, as I keep all my kayaking gear in the trunk of my car, and don’t have to worry about the same thing happening to a replacement.

I managed to bend the pump to the point where it no longer works

Summary
This is a simple hand-pump that expels water from a kayak or canoe. It does what it is supposed to well when my kayak has plenty of water in it. However, the drier the kayak gets the harder it gets to pump. I generally end up finishing off with a sponge. I found it perfectly adequate for the job until it somehow got bent, and now it is useless. I will replace it though, if not with this model, with something similar.

Likes
Simple to use
Works to get water out of the kayak
Durable for most people

Dislikes
Gets tiring to use, particularly as the water is getting low in the kayak
Foam hand-hold was too big, and has split
Tubes somehow got bent, and now it is really hard to pull the handle up at all