Side walkway deck drains clogging due to paint scraping

[zigzag930]

I had some guys working on the boat for the last few days. They were scraping paint from the underside of the covered walkways around the salon. Then they power washed the "ceiling" where they had scraped the paint.

I thought of it too late, but should have had them cover the walkway drains. Unfortunately for me, two of the drains are now clogged with paint chips.

Any ideas on a way to unclog these? Not sure if all Hatteras have "diverters" on the outside of the hull, but these drain hoses dump into what I call a sea-chest that dumps overboard into the 90 degree diverters.

I am concerned this is going to become a PITA project unless I can either vacuum them out somehow or figure out another way to pull that stuff back up and out.

Any suggestions are really appreciated.​

 

[Pascal]

Probably clogged at the Y where the both drains (fwd and aft of the wing door) meet. On my 53 that Y is behind the master head medicine cabinet and the port Y is in the master closet. Not easy to reach.

Whenever I’ve had issues, water pressure has helped either from the deck blocking the second drain or backwashing from the sea chest hose. If you can reach them.

 

[SEVEN]

I’d try air pressure from the bottom up. Remove the screen on the deck 1st. Not a lot of pressure you don’t want to blow a hole in the drain hose.

 

[zigzag930]

Thanks guys,

Pascal, you are correct - there is a Y just below the deck level. The port side was clogged and it is in the master stateroom closet. Removed the shelf "inset" and found the hose.

I tried to vacuum the paint chips out of the hose by sending a 3/4" vacuum line down inside the drain line. I was able to remove some of the "junk", but it didn't help all that much.

The guys that caused the issue were great and they worked with me for a few hours get this fixed. We had to disconnect the line from the sea-chest which was quite the chore considering all the exhaust hoses in the way. Not only was the hose fully clogged at the sea chest, but the sea chest itself was clogged. I low pressure power washer cleared the sea-chest and a simple hose flush cleared the drain tubes.

Of course when we cleared the drain lines and sea chest, quite a bunch of "junk" found its way to the drain tube which leads forward to the port engine room bilge. Another 30 minutes to remove that blockage, but now all is flowing freely again.