Billy - siphon bailer

Munday wrote: My bailer in the chris craft has a valve on top to induce air if you don't want it to work open the valve. munday

That valve was really put there for mooring in the water. Through the years, there was always a issue with the siphon bailers reverse siphoning. People were finding there boats swamped over night!!! The cheap fix was to drill a small pin hole in the top of the "U". This did reduce the efficiency somewhat allowing air in but the big problem was this pin hole would get clogged and it was back to the swamping problem! Chris (and other high end builders) started putting the valve there and you may even find instructions in a old operating manual to open it while moored in the water. When running the boat, there's never a case where you need to turn it off.

Interesting that some boat surveyors will recommend disabling the bailers so they can give the insurance company a clean report.

Here's a picture off Terps photobucket. It shows the location of the siphon bailer in a Atom. It's the same as mine. Yes, it's off towards the port side of the boat and the suction port isn't in the middle of the bilge but keep in mind that the rear end of our boats are relatively flat.