My deck drain previously drained to a through hull on the transom with a flap-type scupper. It worked relatively well, but I always have worried about water intrusion should the flapper fail. Always carried a plug for the deck drain just for this reason.
Has anyone used one of these check valves to prevent such a thing?
Really don’t want a seacock in there to have to manipulate every time the deck needs draining…
NOTE: I have a fresh slate. New fitting in the deck and the hole in the transom was plugged when we did the glass work. Did that to possibly move drains to corners of deck instead of a single in the middle, but decided against it.
Ideally, what would your deck drain system look like?
We have two flapper scuppers on our Seafox. The flappers seem resilient and look like they can be replaced easily. Only issue is lots of stuff gets flushed into them (shrimp, small bait fish, leaves etc.) which causes them to plug up a bit. Usually unplug them with a snake. Good idea to have a drain plug, will need to find one to fit.
The main issue with scuppers on self bailing cockpits is if the deck is below the waterline, you’ll have water in the boat unless you plug them. This is a problem on my brother-in-law’s Key West 172. He put those ping pong ball type ones on his boat and they do work well until they get some debris in them and then they allow water in the boat every time you stop moving. My Mckee has the flapper type built into the transom, but my deck is at least 3" above the waterline when stopped. They will definitely allow water to get in through them, but it’s not nearly the issue because mines not below the waterline. They constantly get trash in them as others have said, but they are really easy to clean out also.