I always thought the best of both worlds would be a permanently installed electric pump on your own boat, with a detachable hose to be able to pump out a second boat if needed, like a modern vacuum cleaner with detachable hoses and functions.
Got all the parts to build an electric bilge pump, haven’t gotten around to installing and testing it yet.
For those who want to go down the many rabbit holes on this subject, two good starting points here:
Brought a kit about 3 years ago. Finally decided to do the install in my Stratos 14.5, which serves as my rockplay/surf boat. (Not willing to put holes in my carbon/kevlar boat.) I think rockplay is the most likely venue for me to come out my boat. Since I mostly solo, the electric bilge will provide “extra safety” where hand pumping in rough water conditions, while maintaining stability with paddle braces, is almost impossible.
In midst of the install. We see how it performs next week hopefully.
The kit was made by some guy from AZ and sold on EBay. He unfortunately does not seem to be doing this anymore. It is a pretty good kit, with pump, hoses, battery enclosed in waterproof and fully wired box. There are extra lengths of connecting cable using waterproof plug and screwed together casings. The downside for me is that the waterproof on/off switch is on the battery box. And the battery box would have to be in the cockpit behind the seat, or in a day hatch. I prefer to have the on/off switch to be fully accessible on the deck area of the kayak. If I come out of the boat, I want to do a reenter and roll, switch on the pump, continue to hold the paddle to brace against the water conditions and then redo the skirt once the kayak is dewatered and stabilized. Then I can then shut off the pump. So, to make this happen with this kit, I need to figure out how to rewire and build an exterior on/off switch.
I ordered some reed switches and will need to play around with splicing one in. Thankfully, the kit does come with 2 extra long sections of the connecting cables.
