Reply To: Help! Fresh Water Tank leaking into Bilges – 331 Good Dog 2005

[David Babsky]

We have a 33, not a 331, so I can’t give specifics about yours (..I’m replying to let you know that your plea hasn’t gone unheard!)

On the 33, the floor sections of the saloon lift up, and there’s the – or there are the – fresh water tank(s) with easy accessibility.

To FIND a leak, I’d put just a LITTLE water in the tank(s) with strong, vivid vegetable dye, so that you can see where the water’s leaking out from (..e.g; split tank, cracked seal or bung, etc).

Unfortunately, I don’t know the location of the tank(s) on a 331, but my 1st suspect would be a loose Jubilee clip on one of the pipes which connect the water to the fresh water pump, or a split diaphragm on the pump itself. (On a 33, the pump is under the first settee cover on the port side as you descend into the saloon, but I’ve no idea where it is on a 331; sorry!)

The pipes themselves wouldn’t split – I wouldn’t have thought – as they’re reinforced plastic ..but the junction between pipes and tank(s) and pump would be, I think, the first places to check.