Willow Wren's pumpout squirter

Pumpout tanks are great.  I enjoy the fact that they are effectively a capacious extension my lower intestine, and I don't have to worry about them for weeks.

It's like outsourcing constipation.

But when I finally do the pumpout, I'm aware that there's a sludge building up in the bottom of the tank that a simple bucket of water poured into the doesn't shift.

So when I had a pumpout at Willow Wren in Rugby the other week, it was good to see that they use a high-pressure 'squirter' to stick inside the tank and loosen the sludge. It's a simple copper pipe, stuck on the end of the hose and squeezed to a narrowness.

This is a great idea - well done Willow Wren!  That's what I call 'added value' to the full £15 pumpout charge.  They use it for their hire boats (pictured here), but it's available to private boats too.

So from now on, any pumpout that doesn't include a squirter is deficient.

Unfortunately, when the guy at WW handed me the pipe through the window, the little tap on the end accidentally switched on, and for a second or two I was squirting water around Granny's bathroom like I was attached to a possessed thing.

I didn't know there was a tap on the end, and that second or two seemed like precious seconds longer and I was briefly cursing them before finding the tap (at the point where the guy gent in the picture here is holding it).

Willow Wren's pumpout 'squirter', August 2008

Comments

[Alex]

Never mind the 'squirter' I am due to be attached to WW hire boat next week . One boatyard that always does a good job. Somehow it feels like going home !

[Steve]

We've always put the flush hose through the window on Mintball. Its not the most pleasant job standing there in the loo squirting water into the sludge but it really does work well because of course you're spraying right down on the the main "dumping" point (sorry!).

I've never been impressed by a lot of boatyard pumpouts which usually seem to be "connect up/suck until it stops/(rinse)/chemicals" so it is good to hear that one boatyard is doing a good job