The Chesapeake Bay is relatively shallow with lots of great anchorages. Ive seldom left a gunkhole without lots of nasty gray bottom mud on the anchor. The mud always finds its way into the anchor locker and all over the windlass. There are solutions: a few buckets hauled up to wash the stuff off, a large water toy gun filled several times to blast the mud and so forth. I got tired of all of these approaches. I installed an anchor wash-down pump and it works great.

I scoured the web and found a Johnson 5.2 kit with the pump, hose, connectors, and hose thru connector. I bought 50 feet of 3/4 Trident blue/red tracer water hose, 10 stainless steel hose clamps, and a Forespar 3/4 Y-valve. After studying the Hunter 38 manuals pages on electric feeds and plumbing and after uncovering hatches, cabinet, and side panels to verify the manual, I came up with a plan to mount the pump, connect the wires, and plumb the hose. Heres what I came up with:

I mounted the pump under the aft cabin sole in front of the port locker next to the macerator and shower sump. I dont have an electric head so I used the head circuit breaker. The circuits 10gauge brown/purple hot wire and yellow ground is under the vanity floor and was easily extended behind the head into the area where I mounted the pump. I decided to use the head thru-hull to supply sea water to the pump. The white sanitation hose from this thru-hull was already plumped to the head through the pump mount area. So, cutting this hose and attaching it the Y-Valve was simple and convenient. The Y-Valve selector either points to the pump or points to the head.

I plumbed a hose under the shower and vanity floor through the Thru-Hull well in front of the companion way steps, under the refigerator, and under the galley sink. I followed the blue cold water line from the water manifold under the galley sink all the way up to the holding tank in the V-Berth. Theres a PVC tube to guide the path past the genset and starboard dining area seat. I continued through the bulkhead in front of the water holding tank then up behind the forward V-Berth wall under the anchor locker.

The pictures show the mounted pump, Y-Valve, macerator, and shower sump.

The hardest part of the installation was plumbing the Trident hose from the main cabin into the V-Berth. The hose had to go under the main cabin air conditioner to follow the blue cold water hose. The hole through the wall wasnt big enough to carrier both hoses so I had to carefully consider options. The bilge pump hose passes through also, so drilling a hole through the wall required special care. My only option was to drill close to the boats hull side. I carefully drilled so the Trident hose could plumb behind the cedar lining of the starboard cabinet in the V-Berth. I was careful to not compromise any fiberglass supporting the bulkhead and only drilled through wood.

The pump works great to wash the mud off and is also convenient to spray the kids when they swim around playing in the water.