Carver Owners Forum

My wife and I are new the Carver Yacht life. Everything is big and overwhelming. We have had our 2002 356 for about a month with very little big boat experience. That being said we worry a lot. Most of our worry I feel is not knowing what switch to flip when, what is to stay on, or pump this and fill this here, etc. My latest worry yesterday is the forward bilge would come on every 5 minutes like clockwork. It has never run before but continued to to pump yesterday. I turned the dock water hydrant off and it stopped. It has been hooked to the dock water for a month with no issues. I was told the dock water when hooked up bypassed the water tanks and used the dock water pressure on the boat. However when I turn the water hydrant on it seems to be pumping water into the boat causing the bilge to run and what looks to be an overflow vent on the front right of the boat. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated as we are thinking we have made a mistake due to lack of knowledge. Thank you for your help to a couple of new boat owners.
CMB

If you shut the dock water off, and then turn on the water pressure breaker so the water pump runs, does that water pump ever shut off? If it doesn't you could be seeing a leak that gets exasperated by higher pressure dock water.

In theory the dock water does nothing more than bypass the tank. It feeds the water system after the pump instead of before it.
Dock water can have different pressure than your on board water pump. If you have high dock water pressure you could be exposing a leaking water line that wouldn't otherwise leak under boat pressure.

Just go slow through the troubleshooting. It's always something on a boat and a lot of the time it's something simple!

Welcome, have you pulled the floor hatches up in the area to see the bilge and if it's full of water? The dock water will bypass the water tank and you could very well have a plumbing leak that could be filling the bilge and causing the bilge pump to cycle on. Not turning on dock water Have you just turned on the water pump on the boat to see if will come on and supply water to your sinks and then turn itself off when the sink faucets are closed. If it doesn't it could also confirm a leak in a water line. Also later on best thing for a new would be to grab a flashlight and open every hatch and look around and get familiar with your boat.

Welcome to the forum......while you figure out what is leaking my advice is.....Do not leave the dockside water on when you leave the boat even for an hour.....shut it off at the dock and depressurize your onboard lines by opening a tap.

There is some good advice above...

bud37 wrote:Welcome to the forum......while you figure out what is leaking my advice is.....Do not leave the dockside water on when you leave the boat even for an hour.....shut it off at the dock and depressurize your onboard lines by opening a tap.

There is some good advice above...

What bud said…always turn off dock water when not on the boat.

There’s a lot of us 356 owners here and we can answer just about any question you come up with.
If you haven’t already, get a good flashlight and open every opening you can find, climb in the engine room, pull up the carpeting at the aft head door…there are 2-3 bilge openings underneath, including the aft sump pump, (clean it out while checking it out) lift up both mattresses and look underneath , make sure both AC units have a filter (mine didn’t, so I put them in) pull out the drawer in the aft night stand and lift the top off of the night stand…that’s how you can see the aux fuel tank in the swim platform. Open the anchor locker in the forward stateroom and make sure everything looks good there.

BTW, the steps going to the aft stateroom can be pulled up to access the engine room from the rear. Figure out how to do that before you need to.

Welcome, tons of great people here who will guide you in the proper direction. We also turn the water off to the boat when not there, precautions.

I agree with all the above.

Before we go down the wrong path with assumptions, make sure your air conditioners are shut off so their operation and overboard discharge doesn't confuse the issue. Have you been running the forward air conditioner during all this? Does this still happen if the air isn't running? If the air has been running during this time, check your forward shower sump which is where the fwd air condensate drips into and ensure the sump is working to pump the condensate overboard instead of overflowing into the bilge and activating the bilge pump. It would be a lot of condensate to run the sump pump every 5 minutes but it's possible if it's really humid down there and can be what's pumping instead of what you think is the bilge pump doing it.

Please confirm that the hose connected to the dockside water faucet on the dock is connected to your dockside water inlet fitting at the back of the boat.

ktmchance wrote:Source of the post.... However when I turn the water hydrant on it seems to be pumping water into the boat causing the bilge to run and what looks to be an overflow vent on the front right of the boat.....

So are you saying that when the dockside water is turned on, you have a discharge out of two separate outlets/thru-hulls? Is what you consider the overflow always discharging constantly as long as the dockside water is turned on and then stops if you shut the water off? If so, and you've confirmed it's actually the tank vent, then the check valve in your fresh water pump has failed or is fouled and allowing the dockside water to pass thru the pump, into the tank and overflowing through the vent. This check valve is what's supposed to prevent your tank from filling up while you have the dockside water pressure on. Where is the location of what you think is the tank vent that's discharging water?

Here is a little update. My wife and I took all of your advice. We went slow and did things one at a time. He what we learned. With the shore water OFF we turned on the boat water pump and it came on as it should. We checked all of our sinks, showers, and hose down faucets to bleed any air and check functionality. All worked fine except the shower on the swim platform. It to me doesn’t appear like it has been used in sometime. By taking the advice from you guys the pump didn’t shut off and continued to run. Leading me to believe a water line leak. I did mark the water in the forward bilge area and I did see it slowing start to rise. This again confirming what I think is a water line leak. I assume because it is in the forward part of the boat maybe in the bathroom or galley. I looked in the bilge area and under the table but nothing visible spraying water. I’m not sure how to see under the toilet or shower or under the galley sink. Also someone mentioned the check valve where the dockside water does fill the tank. If it is malfunctioning would that also cause the water to come in the forward bilge area while using the boat water. I feel I have a water line leak from maybe the shore water pressure but the check valve seems a lot easier.
Thank you again from letting us into the family.
Your help is comforting .

Good stuff so far.....my advice is the same as always, shut all water off, dry the bilge ( and by dry I mean towel dry ).......lay out some rolled up towels or rags or paper towels here and there and turn the water back on.......then you will see what direction the water is coming from and eliminate areas that would wast time......good luck with your hunt, get a mirror and a bright flashlight to check, sometimes the spray leaks are real hard to notice.

There should be a floor hatch under the dinette table. This is where the hot water tank should be. Check the area around the tank and see if there's any water around the tank that shouldn't be there. Any water leaking in this compartment will also show up in the forward bilge as well.