Wobbly Wheels wrote:As far as the gulpers themselves go, the skipper's rule of thumb is always that the manual pump is manned by the most scared crew member.
When I was a kid, the old hands still didn't trust them new-fangled diaphragm pumps - I mean, who would trust something with a piece of rubber for a working part?
They still held to rotary bilge pumps for emergency use and if you ever tried to turn them, they would barely move. However there is no doubt that your strength doubled by the time the water was wetting your shoes and doubled again once it got up to your ankles - by then, the rotary pump turned as easily as an egg whisk.