: My experience with a foot operated Guzzler pump goes beyond the
: concept stage. When I flip my Guillemot back up after a dump it
: does not have a lot of water in it, 2" at most. Then I get
: back in and start pumping. And I pump and I pump and I pump.
: It's true I can keep the boat stable because my arms aren't busy
: pumping but it takes a very long time. As Malcom says it is not
: something youo want to be doing in a hazardous area. If there is
: a lot of water my legs can even need a rest before the job is
: done. I don't think the Guzzler has enough capacity/stroke. Just
: my opinion.

: Ric

: Pumping out is best understood if you've just been out practicing
: :

The problem with conventional off the shelf foot pumps, or pumps that can be converted to foot pumps for kayak use is they are designed to have a fair amount of head (the distance the pump either has to draw water up to the pump or to discharge the water out of the pump). For a kayak you need no head, virtually none at all, so the pump is poorly designed for our purpose. I'll have to play with this sometime, it's not "that" hard to design a new pump with large volume and low head.

Still a friend had an idea a number of years ago and never pursued it. Take a little Rule bilge pump take it apart and insert the pump/motor combo into a PVC tube and include a 12 volt tool battery in the upper end, then you have an easily rechargable fairly long life (if you use lithium batteries) hand held electric bilge pump that can go from boat to boat. Kinda amazed no one's come up with this one commercially, it's so simple.

Bill H.