Cockpit Drains
Just as with all the other modifications we have made to Casulen II the main objective has been to make her more seaworthy. The cockpit on Corribee`s is self draining, yes, but have you ever filled it to the brim and timed how long it takes to empty? Probably not, but you would certainly have time to take a quick bath before you ran out of water. We found out when we got knocked flat by a big gust of wind towards the end of our summer trip of 2006. Admittedly it was nobody’s fault but our own, we were carrying far to much sail for the conditions. By the time we had got sorted out the wind was reading a steady 34 knots and we were travelling at 7.5 knots with just a jib off a GP14 up which was our storm jib at the time. We learnt a lot that day.
Anyway back to cockpit drains. Having looked at what was under our cockpit we were not very impressed even before the above adventure so decided to replace them. The bigger the better was the order of the day so 11/2” was the obvious choice. We chose Forespar Marelon seacocks with matching cockpit drains again in Marelon. These are available from Aquafax. http://www.aquafax.co.uk/html/product_specification.asp?ID=11433 
These were not the easiest things to fit, not because of the seacocks themselves, which are really well made and inspire loads of confidence but due to the complete lack of space under the cockpit of a Corribee. Thankfully we had chosen the 90° ones as otherwise I don’t think we would even have got them in. We also used 11/2” 90° bends as can be seen in the photo’s and of course double stainless steel Jubilee clips for every connection.
Do they make much difference you may ask? Well once again they have been thoroughly tested, this time in Cardigan bay on two separate occasions and I can vouch for the fact that now you would not even have time to get the soap out.
Jonny