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Our Products In Action
Rule Pumps Save Boat and Crew
When a boat used during a recreational fishing trip sprung a leak on the high
seas, disaster was averted because three durable and high-quality bilge pumps
from ITT's Rule Industries were on board. Rule Industries is the global
leader in submersible bilge pumps for the recreational and small commercial
boat markets and a principle provider of marine accessories such as bilge
pumps and switches, compasses, winches, and boat care products.
Just off the coast of Massachusetts, between Cape Cod and Cape Ann is a great
fishing ground known as the Stellwagen Bank. This sand and gravel plateau at
the mouth of Massachusetts Bay captures nutrient-rich waters that powers a
vast multi-layered food web that culminates with the great humpback whales
that are found feeding in the area.
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| A grateful John Macnamara and John Avery tell Rule Industries employees the
story of how the pumps they made saved their boat and very possibly their
lives. |
It was to these rich fishing grounds that two sport fisherman were drawn and
where bilge pumps from ITT's Rule Industries kept them afloat on their
sinking vessel until help arrived.
John Macnamara and John Avery rode out to the Stellwagen Bank at 10:30 a.m.
on a Sunday in early June for a day of leisurely fishing. The friends, who
had met three years earlier because they tie up their boats next to one
another at the Cap Ann Marina, were ready to fish.
"There were tons of them, too," said Avery, a Foxboro, Massachusetts man, who
is an architectural representative for a paint company. The men were riding
in Macnamara's 30-foot sport fishing boat and hoping to catch striped bass
and maybe a blue fin tuna or two.
But as luck would have it, mechanical difficulties intervened. As they
cruised the bank at about 25 knots, the boat started vibrating. The friends
slowed the boat, but the problems got worse. They cut the motor and alarms
sounded. The men then opened the hatch to the boat's engine to figure out
what the problem was and saw water three feet deep and rising.
"We had no engines and were 14 miles out in Stellwagen with no land, no
people, no nothing in sight," said Macnamara, who lives in Wakefield,
Massachusetts and owns a business that makes signs and banners.
The men immediately called the U.S. Coast Guard for assistance. They were
told that help was 40 minutes away. With the water temperature about
50-degrees F, the Coast Guard later told the men, they would have survived in
the water for about 20 minutes before succumbing to hypothermia.
Three Rule Pumps on Board
Luckily, the men survived, as did Macnamara's boat, because of the three
bilge pumps made by Rule Industries in their Gloucester, Massachusetts
factory - only a few miles from where the boat was taking on water.
The problem, Macnamara explained, was that a seal of the boat's through-hull
fitting around the shaft that runs between the engine and propeller had
broken. When the friends gunned the motor, in hopes of making it back to
shore, the shaft only made the hole larger.
To provide some perspective on how fast water can flood a boat, a one-inch
diameter hole in the hull of a boat that is at a three foot depth will let in
approximately 34 gallons per minute - or about 2,040 gallons per hour.
The sport fishing boat was originally fitted with the three Rule pumps as
original manufacturer equipment. According to Steve Tilders Marketing Manager
for Rule, "We tell the boat builders that they should normally have about
100 gallons per hour pumping capacity per foot of boat." Continuing, Steve
noted that, "The pumps are generally located in the lowest area of the boat.
In an OEM installation such as this, the boat builder decides what capacity
pumps go into the boat and where they go."
With the boat experiencing massive leakage through the hole next to the
driveshaft, when the water level reached roughly 2.75 inches, the switches on
the Rule pumps kicked in and turned the pumps on.
Luckily, the leaking vessel was equipped with two 1,500 gallons-per-hour
(GPH) capacity pumps and one 500 GPH pump for a total pumping capacity of
3,500 GPH.
The leak on the boat at first outstripped the boat's three pumps until
Macnamara stuffed a towel against the hole and forced it closed with his
feet. That gave the pumps time to work.
When the Coast Guard arrived on the scene, they determined that with the
pumps working and no lives in immediate danger, they would try to tow the
boat to shore. The Coast Guard plugged the leak with a hardening substance
that later disintegrated under the water's pressure. Macnamara said that
particles of the hardening substance were ingested into the pumps, but that
they still continued to work.
When asked about the quality of Rule pumps, Tilders remarked that, " These
pumps have 30 years of engineering change orders built into them. They are
the flagship products of the Rule line and the two particular models
installed on this boat are the highest selling models The pumps are truly
built from the ground up at the Rule plant in Glouchester, Massachusetts.
This includes the motors, which is unusual in this industry, and each pump is
subjected to many quality control checks." Tilders went on to say that the
larger pumps, which pumped the majority of the water on this boat, enjoy a
90% market share in the bilge pump market.
The Coast Guard towed the men back to Cape Ann, with the pumps still running,
on a return trip that lasted about seven hours. Once back safely on shore,
the two friends were so thankful for being alive that they felt they had to
come personally to the factory to express their gratitude to the employees.
The duo eventually dropped by to the Rule factory to say thank-you to the
people who made the pumps.
Tilders said the company routinely gets letters from grateful customers, "but
rarely does it include a personal delivery."
Tilders helped usher the men through the plant and gather employees to meet
them. He said it was important that the company's workers hear their story.
"This is serious stuff and they really have to understand that they are doing
important work which is true to the ITT Industries motto, "Engineered for
Life."
The friends told the story to groups of employees, whose faces variously
showed astonishment and wonder. The critical part of their story was what
might have happened without the pumps, with the frigid waters quickly filling
their craft.
"If I had one less pump, or if one of those pumps wasn't working, the boat
would have sunk," Macnamara said. "In essence, your pumps saved us."
Rule Industries' outstanding products and market leadership encouraged
ITT to acquire Rule in 1998. Rule is now part of the ITT's Specialty Products Group and markets its products around the
world along side those of Jabsco, another leadership company in the leisure
marine market.
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